#I’m not sure if the post itself would be triggering with unreality or not but I’m tagging it anyway just in case | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

liquidstar · 4 years ago

Note

I'd love to hear some of your recommendations! And I'm good without any content warnings, but since you're posting this for all your followers to see probably best to add them

Alright sure! I’ll be general then and since you’re just starting out this will sort of be bringing up a lot of really popular ones, the really good ones where the general consensus is “you gotta see this!”, but I’ll also try to give ones from different genres so you have a variety of things to pick from, so this isn’t really a list of personal favorites but I’ll throw in a couple of those too lol, but generally think of this as a handy beginners guide with just a little personal bias.

I wrote a lot so I'm gonna put them under the cut here.

Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist is a franchise that’s considered a must-watch, it takes place in a world where alchemy is a borderline magical power, but is considered scientific in-universe and follows scientific laws, namely the law of equivalent exchange. Something can’t be made from nothing, to gain something of equal value must be lost. The story follows the story of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who at the ages of 10 and 11 committed alchemy’s one and only unforgivable sin, human transmutation, in an attempt to bring their mother back to life. As a result, one brother lost his arm and leg and the other lost his entire body, leaving his soul bound to a suit of armor. However the brothers are resolute to regain their original bodies, and the older brother, Edward, joins the State Alchemists, a branch of the military, to try to gain access to research materials to help them achieve their goal. But was that really such a good idea?

Fullmetal Alchemist can be a bit confusing to get into due to the fact that there are two series: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009). The latter is a reboot with a different story that follows the original manga. They both have the same beginning, but diverge paths and tell very different stories. My recommendation for how to watch this show is: Watch 2003 first, and Brotherhood second. Everyone has a different opinion about which is better, but everyone agrees that 2003 has better backstory but a contrived ending, and Brotherhood has a rushed beginning (Because it works off the assumption that you’ve seen 2003) with a great and fulfilling ending. If you can’t do both I say just watch Brotherhood because it will leave you more satisfied and you don’t have to watch 03 to get into it.

For both series the biggest trigger warnings are: Parental death, child death, pet death, war, genocide, dismemberment, religious themes, and miscarriage. For brotherhood specifically: on-screen suicide, and for 2003 specifically: rape (not on-screen) and pregnancy from it. The 2003 series is also a lot darker than Brotherhood which has a more optimistic tone, so that’s worth noting too.

Soul Eater

A show I think is incredibly fun, and a good one for an October watch if you wanna save it. It takes place in a world where certain people have the ability to transform into weapons, and they team up with other people who become their meisters. The characters often travel around, but the main setting is Death City, a fictional city in Nevada based off of Las Vegas but with a huge Halloweentown vibe, and a school right at the top of it called the Death Weapon Meister Academy (DWMA) where a bunch of kids that turn into weapons learn how to hunt down witches and kishins (Beings that consume human souls). The school, of course, is run by the grim reaper, Lord Death himself.

Our main characters for the series are a group of 7 students. Our protagonist Maka Albarn and her weapon partner Soul “Eater” Evans, a scythe. A loud mouth assassin named Black✰Star and his weapon partner Tsubaki, who has many weapon forms. And the son of the grim reaper, Death The Kid, and his two weapon partners Liz and Patty Thompson, who are twin pistols. There are also a bunch of really lively colorful background characters and antagonists, and the cast of the show being as insane as it is really makes it, on top of the great atmosphere and of course the plot, which just builds more and more as the series progresses. Also Crona is there and we all love Crona.

Trigger warnings for this show include: Child abuse (Mental and physical), manipulation, snakes and spiders (The motifs of two major villains), some very surreal moments that can verge on unreality. Also, in the dub and most subs: misgendering of a canonically trans character. Crona is a character who is non-binary, but the dub and subs use gendered pronouns for them due to general ignorance about neutral pronouns in 2008, though this isn’t the fault of the original series and falls on the translators hands.

Also it’s important to note: that the first 3 episodes are prologues and they take themselves less seriously, there’s more fanservice in them than there is in the rest of the series (Except for Blair she stays the fanservice character :pensive:)

Zombieland Saga

Idol anime is really prevalent as a genre, the most popular being Love Live, but my personal favorite is Zombieland Saga. It’s an idol anime, but it’s also a comedy about zombie girls who become idols. It sounds ridiculous but there’s an insane amount of heart in it regardless, it wasn’t a show I expected to get emotional at but I did! It also made me laugh a lot too. The series itself can serve as a bit of a subversion on what idols are, not just because they’re literally zombies, but because of who the characters are.

Sakura Minamoto is a character who starts off as a more typical idol, a peppy pure girl, as the series continues her struggle with depression gets highlighted. Saki Nikaido serves as her initial foil, a delinquent girl with a criminal record who subvers the idea of pure perfect idols. Ai Mizuno, a former idol who has since undergone severe trauma (The way she died). Junko Konno who has ideals that seem very different on what idols “should” be due to the time period she died. Lily Hoshikawa, an explicitly transgender idol. Yugiri nolastname, a former high ranking courtesan, subvering the pure image of an idol by being a sex worker. And Tae Yamada, a completely nonverbal idol who’s still treated with the same amount of importance as the rest of the team. The premise here really is just that these girls don’t fit the incredibly rigid mold of what idols should be and yet they still all deserve love and they gain a fanbase by being their earnest selves.

Trigger warnings for this series aren’t incredibly severe but since they’re zombies there’s still talks about death and they way they died (Including motorcycle/car accidents, plane crashes, getting struck by lightning, and a heart attack), there’s also comedic dismemberment, as in their arms just sort of pop on and off and stuff like that. The most notable thing is the deadnaming of Lily, the trans idol, by her father, but it doesn’t appear to be malicious in any way.

Note: this series is in the middle of it’s second season right now, if you want to wait until it’s over it should be 12 episodes long and just aired it’s 3rd, so about 9 more weeks.

Death Note

This is also absolutely another series that gets recommended to people right off the bat, and for good reason, this show is an intricate game of chess between a serial killer and a detective trying to catch him, and it’s incredibly easy to get super invested in the suspense of what happens next. The story begins when a shinigami, a god of death, drops his “Death Note” into the human world out of pure boredom. A Death Note is simply a notebook where if you write someone's name in it… They die! And who better to pick up such a powerful object than Light Yagami, a prodigy praised for his genius and academy accomplishments as well as his charm and popularity, and with a very strong but juvenile black-and-white sense of justice, likely due to being raised by a cop.

So naturally Light begins his power trip as soon as he finds the notebook, he intends to “fix” the world by cleansing it of all the bad people, but truly he intends to become the world’s new god. Or the “God of the new world” as he puts it. But there’s one thing standing in his way, a detective resolute on catching him with the codename L. The series entire crux is a game of cat and mouse between these two, as they try to outsmart each other and the murders continue, Light loses more and more of his humanity, L becomes more resolute on catching him. There are more twists and turns than a cheetah race, and it’s honestly pretty addictive to see what happens next.

Trigger warnings here obviously include a lot of death and murder, including suicide, but in some cases it’s a forced suicide at Light’s hands. Also abuse, as Light loses his humanity he isn’t above manipulating and discarding people who love him. And one instance of near-rape on screen fairly early on, but the purpitrator dies before it happens and the victim escapes.

K-On!

Slice-of-life is an incredibly popular genre, and K-On! is the quintessential example of it. It’s a series that not everyone will like, because not a lot truly happens, and it can be overly saccharine or “moe” for a lot of people, and that’s fine. But I personally think that despite not a lot happening, the story has genuine substance, more than you may gather at first glance. It’s true that not much in the way of big plot really happens, it’s mostly life events, that’s why it's a slice-of-life. But it’s not about nothing. The real theme of the show is the fleeting nature of youth. It’s about how important the friendships you form at that time are, how they’ll stick with you for a lifetime, and how everything comes to an end. It’s sweetness even becomes a little bittersweet because you knew their after school tea time would end come graduation, and as they realize this it breaks their hearts a little, but they continue on, because they’re still After School Tea Time!

The series itself is simply about 5 girls in a band, Yui Hirasawa on lead guitar, Mio Akiyama on the bass, Ritsu Tainaka on the Drums, Tsumugi Kotobuki on the Keyboard, and Azusa Nakano on Rhythm Guitar (Who shows up later). They’re in a club at school called the light music club where they waste a lot of their time just drinking tea and eating cake, but they’re having fun and that’s what counts! The series has a lot of really great direction and expressive animation despite the fact that a lot of it is just sitting around and talking, it’s incredibly visually interesting so you don’t get bored.

I honestly don’t think there are any big trigger warnings I can give for this series, maybe that Sawa-chan can be a little too forceful when she wants to dress up the girls in cute outfits sometimes but it’s usually not presented as too creepy especially after season 1 where they tone it down due to straying from the manga.

Mob Psycho 100

This series is an absolute love letter to the art of animation as a whole, the artstyle itself may not seem like much to look at but the animation is some of the most expressive, fluid, creative, and vibrant out there right now, it’s the type of series that you can tell was made with a real passion for its medium and it’s story. It’s protagonist is Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed “Mob”, a term that literally means “Background character”. Mob is a middle school kid and an incredibly powerful psychic, like, insanely overpowered, but he’s currently working part time for a shady conman, Reigen Arataka. Though it may seem as if Reigen is just using Mob for his powers, their bond is actually a very sweet one and you can tell they care for each other, it’s a very important one at the heart of the series.

The core themes of the series itself are what really make it shine, it’s message is stated as clearly as possible in the opening songs, “your life is your own” and “if everyone is not special, maybe you can be what you want to be”. Put simply, you’re the protagonist of your own life, but the other important message of the series is that all the supposed background characters are just as important. The friends you make, the connections you have with other people and the way they impact you, they’re what make you strong. No one is born special, everyone is just a normal person, and everyone deserves kindness. It’s a series that I recommend incredibly strongly for just how powerfully it portrays this message.

Trigger warnings for this series include kidnapping, possession, a scene with a “man in a dress” joke, and a racist design for a background character. Also (spoilers) a scene where it seems like a child was murdered and a scene where it seems like Mob’s entire family was murdered.

Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War!

Hey, speaking of amazing animation, Kaguya-Sama is a romantic comedy series centered around the premise of two incredibly arrogant people falling in love. Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane are the vice president and president of the student council at the prestigious Shuchi'in Academy, they eventually develop feelings for each other but they’re both simultaneously too proud and too insecure to admit it, so the real crux of the series is the 3D chess they play with each other to try and get the other to confess first. Along with the scatterbrained secretary, Chika Fujiawara, the treasurer in desperate need of Prozac Yu Ishigami, the cast is incredibly fun and they all fit into the comedy great. Every single little game of “do you like me?” that they play is written like the most intense thing in the world, the insane animation absolutely adds to it, making it seem almost like a psychological thriller, the comedy comes from the absurdity of just how much they hyperbolize it.

It’s not pure comedy though, due to a lot of the series being set up around mindgames, the characters are actually fairly psychologically complex with a lot of genuine development stemming from their childhood to explain why they are the way they are. The series may be about mindgames, but the actual narrative frames them as a juvenile way to go about relationships, a way to try to protect yourself from getting hurt because you’re afraid to trust. The entire core theme is that communication in relationships of any kind is the most important thing and you cant replace it with clever little tricks, so the main pair only ever make actual progress when they’re actually upfront with each other. Even if it’s scary to be that vulnerable with someone, especially if you’ve been hurt in the past like they have, the relationships you build off of mutual trust and openness will be worth the risk, and they can help heal you. And one of the things I love about the series is that this doesn’t just apply to the main pair, but it places equal emphasis on the importance of friendship. All the characters' relationships with each other are unique and interesting and they all develop the same way, with trust and openness, and they become better because of each other.

Despite being generally a comedy, a lot of the characters deal with some really heavy things too so trigger warning for: child abuse (not on-screen), child abandonment (again not on screen), anxiety and panic attacks, suicidal ideation- initionally played off as a joke but it becomes very obvious the character in question is legitimately suicidal and in the manga he nearly attempts it but is stopped, this plotpoint will most likely be in the anime at some point as it’s also not complete.

Your Lie In April

Alright I gave you a funny show now I’m going to make you cry. In fact it’s hard for me to type this synopsis because I’m an absolute crybaby and thinking about this show gets me, but I think it’s absolutely worth checking out because it’s a very beautiful sadness. Your Lie In April is a series that follows the stress and trauma young musical prodigies face in their lives, as well as the people around them, and it’s a series about the beauty of music and art, and just how much it affects people. The music in the show is absolutely gorgeous, the way that they convey emotion through it is so beautiful and intricate that it just sticks with you. You feel the music, and you understand.

I’m actually going to give the trigger warnings right now instead of at the end because in order to explain the plot I’ll have to talk about them so tw for: Child abuse (phsyical and mental, on-screen), terminal illness, death, in depth depictions of PTSD, vomiting, panic attacks, the works.

The series follows Kousei Arima, a formal piano prodigy who hasn’t performed since the death of his mother two years ago. Kousei's mother was terminally ill, but she was also incredibly abusive. Kousei has incredibly complex feelings about his mother because of this. The trauma she instilled in him is severe, but because he was a child, he still is a child, and he loved his mom a lot, as any child would, and he didn’t want her to die and he blames himself for not being good enough. He wanted to make her happy, and the only way he knew how to do that was to play the piano. So he played and played and practiced until he was perfect, they called him the human metronome. But he would still get severely punished for being anything less than perfect. He had lost all the passion he once had, and after his mother died it was the final nail in the coffin, his trauma manifests now in a way that makes him unable to play. But all that changes one day in April when he meets a violinist named Kaori Miyazono, a girl full of life and passion for music, she’s someone who according to Kousei “Exists in springtime.” and she’s going to help him play again and refined that love for music whether he wants to or not! Teen drama happens of course, but there are much bigger roadblocks ahead.

Assassination Classroom

This series is thankfully generally more lighthearted… Most of the time at least. The premise is pretty simple, but incredibly ridiculous. An incredibly powerful octopus-like creature is the teacher of a classroom of middle school students tasked with the assignment of assassinating him in order to save the world. The series starts off very slice-of-life as it focuses on introducing the very large cast of characters inside of Class E, also known as the “end class”, but it quickly gains traction and gets a lot more intense as time goes on.

The octopus creature in question, Korosensei, is actually a very kind and genuinely good teacher to all his students. The real crux of the series is that it’s sort of a critique on the educational system, the students in the end class are there because they’ve been ostracized from the rest of the campus, far away in the mountains, to be made examples of. Why? Because they’re students that are considered worthless, instead of getting help they’re only pushed back further down in the system and left to struggle within it fruitlessly. They’re given up on, despite being children with so much potential, because they don’t fit a very rigid mold. That’s what Korosensei wants to help them with, and they’re able to grow as people together. As the series progresses you feel such a great sense of unity for the class, they’re like a family, they stick together and it’s very heartwarming. And watching them work as a team of assassins is so fun!

However the series can get heavy at times too, it doesn’t stray from heavier subject matter at all and i found myself incredibly shocked by it a few times, so trigger warning for: Child abuse (on-screen and off), both at the hands of a parent and a teacher and in one case a parent who is also the principal, misgendering of a character, sometimes as a “joke” but other times played dead serious at the hands of his mother, child death- specifically suicide, a successful one as well as 3 assassination attempts that doubled as suicide attempts by the main 3 characters (weird parallel they all got there huh)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Honestly this is a series that is good to go in blind for if you need to tws, it’s a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, but if you don’t want to know more than that you can stop reading here. If you want to know more, it’s a series that starts off very light-hearted and in tune with typical magical girl conventions at first, however by episode 3 it’s made painfully clear that these girls are being led to sign up into something they shouldn’t. It’s heavy, though not incredibly so, but it’s also a lot to explain in a summary. Madoka magica is… It’s Faust with magical girls.

I’ll explain as much as I can without giving too much away. The story begins when Madoka Kaname and her friend Sayaka Miki encounter a creature who calls itself Kyubey, who says it can grant a wish of theirs and in exchange they have to become magical girls and fight witches. Both the girls are hesitant, but Sayaka wants to wish for her childhood friend’s injuries to be cured so he can play violin again, while Madoka is content as she is and can’t think of a wish. Luckily they have a mentor, a magical girl named Mami Tomoe who helps introduce them to everything. However something is stopping Madoka from becoming a magical girl, a mysterious new student who is also one herself, Homura Akemi, is resolute on keeping Madoka from becoming a magical girl by all means possible, for reasons Madoka doesn’t understand. Things get even more complicated when a rival magical girl shows up, Kyoko Sakura, who becomes Sayaka’s new rival. As things get more heated between those two they discover a terrible secret about the nature of magical girls, and what they truly signed up for.

Spoilers ahead but trigger warning for: Child death, parental death (backstory only), decapitation (off-screen), needles, incredibly surreal imagery inside the witch’s labyrinths that may feel unreal, mind control, suicide, depression and despair expressed by young characters. Also don't bother with Magia Record

The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K.

Alright something lighthearted now, there are a lot of comedy anime I enjoy, a lot of series that have made me laugh, but none has made me bust a gut like this series has, it’s absolutely hilarious. It follows the life of a boy named Saiki Kusuo who has psychic powers. His powers are incredibly overpowered, and he absolutely hates them, in his eyes they cause him nothing but trouble. There’s not much in the way of a plot to describe, because there isn’t any, the series is comprised of 5 minute segments surrounding Saiki and an incredibly vast and colorful cast of characters that are just all completely insane, many serve as parodies as types of anime tropes because the series as a whole is very self aware and doesn’t shy from breaking the fourth wall a lot, but the characters surrounding Saiki are what make his life… Disastrous.

Like I said there’s not really a plot to describe but like FMA people may get confused with this one, there are 3 seasons but one of them is titled “The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K: Reawakened” as is a continuation of the first two with just 6 episodes in it. Also for some reason only the second season isn’t dubbed so if you’re planning on watching it that way you’d have to either stop or switch to subs for season 2

The only major tw I can give here is an ongoing joke about a character being into his sister, he’s treated as disgusting for it of course because he’s a parody of that trope but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable, luckily he doesn’t show up much.

Little Witch Academia

Little Witch Academia is a series I personally just adore, it takes place in a world where witches are common and well-known among the people, but the era of witches is over and magic is dying out. However that doesn’t mean passion of magic doesn’t exist, the protagonist is a young girl named Atsuko Kagari, or Akko for short. She’s resolute on being just like her icon, a witch known as Shiny Chariot, as she attends the same magic school: Luna Nova! Unfortunately Akko isn’t exactly a magical prodigy, in fact she can’t even fly a broom, but that’s not gonna stop her, nothing will. Just like Chariot said, believing in yourself is your magic.

Once at school Akko gets into all types of crazy shenanigans with her with her two roommates, Lotte Yanson and Sucy Manbavaran, and occasionally her rival, Diana Cavendish. Akko still struggles a lot in school, in fact her inability with magic is pretty explicitly handled as a metaphor for a learning disability, and though this makes it harder for her she’s still resolute. Though the series is generally episodic, a concrete plot starts to form by the second core. Along with the help of her guidance counselor, Professor Ursula, Akko learns that she needs to unlock 7 “words” to bring magic back to the world, each time she learns a new one it comes with an important lesson to her and ultimately relates back to each of the core themes of the series

The series is pretty lighthearted so the biggest trigger warning I can give is one for bullying, two characters in particular tend to target Akko for not being a good witch and it can really sting to watch. Other than that none come to mind

#if you want stuff out of a more specific genre i can give a list of those too but this is like. general

16 notes · View notes

the-prince-and-the-thief · 5 years ago

Text

Proof of Bonds

//I promised that I would post the story behind why Akechi has those mysterious red gloves, and here it is! Hope you guys like it!

TW: Gore, Death.

“Just show him th….” Ren stopped himself. He let out a weary sigh. “Actually, if he’s on his way here, it’s already too late.”

“I beg your pardon?” Sae tilted her head, “You just said that he’s going to kill you. Are you really giving up now?”

Yes. Ren thought. He knew that Sae wouldn’t understand, but he couldn’t do it again. If she knew, perhaps she would be lenient, but… Ren just couldn’t watch Akechi sacrifice himself again. And he couldn’t be the one behind that door again. The last sounds he would hear being Akechi’s desperate wailing was more than he could bear.

“Just trying another plan,” Ren said, a slight smirk on his face. “If it works, everything will be fine. And if it doesn’t… well, it won’t matter anyway.”

Sae sighed, and stood up. Ren would not be convinced to change his mind, this much they both knew for certain.

“If you’re sure,” She said as she turned to leave, “Just… don’t do anything reckless.”

He gave her a quiet nod as she shut the door, but deep down, he knew that his “plan”, if one was generous enough to call it that, was recklessness personified. Still, he wanted to believe that he’d made an impact on Akechi. He wanted more than anything to believe that his feelings had reached the guarded, lonely young man that he’d spent nearly four years trying to save. And if he hadn’t… then at least he could try again.

Ren closed his eyes. The interrogation hall was dead quiet. He could hear the sound of high heels clicking against concrete. Of an elevator door opening. Whispers in hushed tones between Sae and Akechi. Then a request from Akechi to the cop.

Sorry for bringing you into this. Ren thought, remembering what Akechi would very soon do to him. I have a feeling that you’ll be fine in the end, though.

After all, if Ren were to meet his end here, then the poor cop dragged into this situation would also have time turned back on him.

As Ren opened his eyes, the door also opened. Just as had happened before, he and the cop entered the room. His wine-dark eyes were cold and empty, and his gaze, as he entered the room, seemed fixed on something far beyond this small interrogation room.

As the door shut, Akechi waited for the cop to turn his back to him. He took the pistol the man carried and shot him with it.

“Huh?! W-what are you--”

With two silenced shots, the man fell to the ground in a bloody heap. The smell of copper and brain matter was burned into Ren’s memory by now.

“...Thank you, for all of this.”

Goro turned the gun on him.

“That’s right, you and your little friends were vital to our plan. That’s what you were going to say next, right?”

That got the empty look out of Goro’s eyes. He stared at Ren, wide-eyed with shock, and gasped.

“H-how--”

“I can’t explain everything. Right now, we’re still in his domain.” Ren looked up at the man who held a pistol to his forehead without fear. “Just let me say my piece. After that, if you still want to kill me… then do it.”

“Very well,” Goro’s cold, monotone voice made Ren shudder. It was as though the young man wasn’t there anymore. Perhaps he wasn’t. People weren’t made to kill, after all. It was possible that to keep up his role, he kept his true self far, far away, protected from pain.

“Let me just start with this- I know what you’re planning. You want that man to reach the top of the world, then ruin him, and enjoy that brief moment of power over him.” Ren carefully watched Goro’s expression. He looked not horrified but instead angry. “...Do you really think that the masses will care? If all of this scandal hasn’t destroyed him yet, why would one more sex scandal make the public hate Masayoshi Shido?”

“What the hell do you know?!” Glaring with murderous intent, Goro shoved the muzzle of his gun against Ren’s forehead. “You think you’ve got me all figured out?! You piece of shit!”

“Goro, you’re being used. He’ll just throw you away when he’s done with you.”

“Shut the hell up!” The man screamed. “Do you think you can look down on me?! You’re just some piece of trash living in an attic!”

If Goro was intending to upset Ren, he was bound to be sorely disappointed. If anything, Ren looked sad, like he was watching a family member writhe about in a straight jacket.

“We’re both being used. At least, I was.” Ren sighed, “You were going to say that this is where my justice ends. But, Goro… I’m not fighting for my justice anymore. I’ve already won that battle. I know you won’t understand what I’m saying, but I want you to remember all of this.”

Goro clicked his teeth and experimentally tightened his grip on the trigger. Ren did not flinch. He had no reaction in the slightest.

“I already know that my justice will win. I was chained to hell itself, and I broke free. But I couldn’t leave you behind. All of this, it’s just a rigged game, and we got put on opposing sides.” Ren’s gaze was serious and unrelenting. Even the drugs he’d been given didn’t seem to be holding him back. “I’m not a pawn in this game anymore. I’m playing my own game, and I’m putting my bets on you.”

“What do you mean…?”

“I wish I could tell you, but I’m playing against a cheater. I’ve gone as far as I can go, but… we’re still here. I’m still on the chopping block. I… I’m sorry, Goro.”

“Why are you apologizing? Are you mocking me?” Goro no longer seemed to know if he was angry, frightened, or saddened. His eyes quivered and darted about like they were looking for a way out.

“No. I’m sorry. I thought that I had gotten through to you. I thought that I had made it clear… that things didn’t have to be like this.” Ren bit his lip and tasted blood. “I need you to do one last thing for me.”

Ren pulled something out of the pocket of his school uniform— a pair of red leather gloves. His gloves, from the metaverse. He’d hidden them carefully before his arrest, just in case. He slid them across the table to Goro.

“Take this,” He pleaded, “If you take my life… if you aren’t satisfied with what comes after this… there’s an airsoft shop in Shibuya. You’ll find a door that shouldn’t be there. Unlock the door. I’ve given you the key to change your fate.”

Goro took the pair of gloves. There was something in one of them, something hard. He pulled it out. A key in a deep, eerie blue. It seemed to glow with some sort of power. His eyes seemed to shine with a faint recognition.

“This is…” For a moment, Ren thought that Goro had truly remembered… but Goro shook his head. “...I see. Have you said your piece?”

“All but one thing.”

Ren felt the muzzle press against his forehead again. It made his bruises throb with pain.

“Any last words, then?”

Ren smiled at Goro, a warm, gentle smile. His gaze softened, and his eyes began to water. Ren didn’t fear death, not anymore. He had seen the other side enough to never fear it again. But this… these words? They were a weight he had carried for years, and he feared to speak them.

“I love you, Goro. I know you’ll do what’s right.”

BANG!

———

With one pull of the trigger, Goro Akechi severed the only bond he’d ever had by his own hand.

Bits of brain matter and misty blood splattered the walls. Some landed on his cheek. It sprayed his gloves in a fine mist. The thick, coppery scent of blood and exposed flesh filled the air, suffocating the detective. The warmth that Ren’s face had just moments before was gone, the life in his eyes lost, and he fell. He slammed into the table and bled in deep pools of crimson.

This kind of scene was something Goro had seen so many times before. He thought he would be numb to the feeling of blood soaking his shoes and socks, that he no longer would feel sickened by the unforgettable stench of death. Yet, his eyes stung. They blurred and watered. His throat tightened and burned as hot stomach acid forced its way out. He lurched over and retched, staring with empty eyes as blood and vomit intermingled on the floor beneath him.

“...Why?”

Why did he say any of that? Why did he have such unfailing faith in Goro? Why did he seem to read the detective like an open book? Why did he apologize? And why….

“Why in the hell did you say you loved me?! Why were you looking at me like that?!”

Goro clung to the table with all his might, lest his knees give out in him. He felt blood soaking through his gloves. The slimy, lukewarm texture made him nearly vomit again.

Drip, drip… water fell to the ground. Only then did he realize that he was sobbing.

He had to go. He had to. He couldn’t stay here. He placed the gun in Ren’s right hand and took out his phone. He couldn’t be seen like this, covered in blood, vomit, and tears. It would ruin the whole plan. As if he hadn’t ruined it already.

He didn’t remember what he was thinking as he escaped. He just ran and ran, through Mementos, through the train stations, to his lonely apartment. It all felt unreal like he was watching himself from a distance. The only sensation that told him this was undeniable reality was his agonizingly loud heartbeat, beating against his chest and ringing in his ears.

He ran into his shower, nearly forgetting to undress in his haste to be clean. When was the last time he felt this much pain after ending someone’s life? Not since the death of Wakaba Isshiki….

No matter how many times he washed his hair, or how roughly he scrubbed at his skin, Goro still felt the stench of death stain him to his core. It felt like his body was rotting away before his eyes. He wanted so badly to scream, but he remembered the thin walls of his apartment. Someone would hear him if he did.

As the adrenaline slowly wore off, the pain set in. He had rubbed his skin raw and bleeding. His body felt heavy, ragged and worn. The ringing in his ears and the tunnel vision that had kept him going had begun to fade— replaced by the ring of his cellphone.

Reluctantly, he turned off the water and answered. The familiar voice on the other end seemed almost mocking to Goro.

“I’ve been trying to contact you for an hour! Where are you?! Has the job been done?!” The voice of his father felt like a needle to the eardrum.

“M… my apologies. The job is complete. It seems the leader of the phantom thieves committed a… a murder-suicide.” The script he had so carefully planned fell apart as that warm, gentle smile lingered in his mind. “There was some cleanup that needed to be done on my end… I used the MetaNav to escape.”

“Of course.” Shido’s scathing tone was like salt in his wounds. “See to it that any evidence is properly disposed of. I expect you to begin with the rest of the phantom thieves shortly.”

“Yes… certainly.” Goro had no energy to argue. He merely hung up the phone.

What Ren had said… he knew from the sound of his voice and from the determined look in his eye that not a single word had been a lie. That man had truly placed all of his hopes in Goro. He had loved him. He had been trying through every day they spent together to make that clear to Goro. And Goro repaid that kindness and love with a bullet between his eyes.

His time with Ren had truly been the happiest days of his life. He… he hadn’t wanted to kill him. But he always assumed that Ren would never accept the disgusting, broken man that Goro had become. He thought that he had to kill Ren before he could throw him away.

“I was so… so foolish.” He sobbed, “It didn’t have to be this way….”

And if Ren had been right with all he had said, then what was any of this good for?! What had he killed his one chance at happiness for?! For a fleeting moment of power before he inevitably ended his own pathetic life?

That key. Ren had said to use that strange blue key, hadn’t he?

Goro threw on a shirt and pants, hastily buttoned them, and grabbed the gloves that Ren had given him. They were, he realized, the gloves he had worn as a phantom thief. Ren truly had given Goro a piece of himself, with the hope that Goro would do the right thing.

I’ll make this right.

--------

In a dusty corner of Shibuya lay a simple airsoft store. The area itself looked like a gathering place for criminals, but in Goro’s state of mind, this only meant that he fit right in.

Right where Ren had said it would be, there was a blue door, not unlike a prison cell. It seemed attached to nothing and like it would go to nowhere. But it had the same deep blue glow as the key he now held in his red glove clad hand.

Goro placed the key inside the lock. It effortlessly fit in, and the door nearly opened on its own. Where nothing had been before, there was a deep passageway lit in eerie blue.

Taking a hesitant step inside, the so-called detective felt a wave of vertigo. His vision seemed to warp, and for a moment, he could not tell if he was moving at all. When his sight came back to him, he saw a prison cell in front of him.

It seems like where I belong right about now… He thought to himself. He moved towards the gate in slow, labored steps. A ball and chain weighed him down, he realized. Fitting.

Inspecting the area beyond the bars that contained him, he saw a being that wasn’t quite human. His large eyes nearly bulged out of his bald head. He scarcely thought the man could blink. He was lanky in limb but had a sturdy torso and a head that seemed too heavy for his body to handle. But nothing was as strange as the large, almost beak-like nose that jutted out far more than any nose reasonably could. The man was like an unsettling doll- resembling a human but just different enough to make one’s skin crawl.

If the long-nosed man noticed Goro’s confusion, he certainly didn’t make it clear. He grinned an unnaturally wide grin and gestured for the young man to pay attention.

“Welcome once again to the Velvet Room,” The voice of the man was nasally (as expected), but high pitched and somewhat gentle. Strange though the man was, his voice put Goro at ease. “I see you’ve borrowed a key once more. I trust that you’re here because you wish to change the path you’ve awakened to.”

Goro opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come to him. He shut his mouth, then opened it again.

“I’ve been here before…?”

“In another time, you visited me once before, guided by the Trickster.”

Goro had absolutely no idea what he meant, but he at least gathered that the “trickster” he mentioned was probably Ren.

“I… I can’t remember.”

“Indeed, another force has taken hold of you. Mind, body, and destiny all rest in the hands of that force.”

Goro recalled Ren saying that they were being used in a rigged game. He wondered if this “other force” was the one using him…

“Ren, he told me to come here. He said you could change this.” Goro’s eyes were watering again. He had never cried this easily before… what had Ren done to him? “Please… I’ve made so many mistakes. If there’s any way I can change any of that, or make up for what I’ve done— I’ll do anything! Just bring him back!”

The unusual man’s expression did not change, but his voice softened, “...I believe humanity has limitless potential, and thus, the Velvet Room exists, between dreams and reality, mind and matter… if you truly wish to live up to your potential, then I will give you that chance. You have grown since your last visit. I sense a change in your heart.

“Still, to break the shackles of fate is no simple feat. Do you truly wish to try again?”

“I… I don’t just wish to. I need to. He trusted me to do the right thing, and I betrayed him. I destroyed everything I had… I want to prove that he wasn’t wrong to believe in me.”

This seemed to satisfy the being that sat before him.

“Then let the wheels of time reverse. That key, of course, must return to its rightful owner… but the proof of your bonds will remain to guide you.”

The long-nosed man snapped his fingers, and Goro felt as though his entire being was beginning to unravel.

Ren… I’ll fix this. I’ll repay your kindness. This is my vow.

Ren…

I love you.

---------

“Now arriving at Shibuya station. Please gather all your belongings before disembarking.”

Goro Akechi didn’t remember falling asleep. It was difficult for him to rest when he knew other people were watching. Yet, here he was, rubbing the sleep from his eyes in the middle of a busy train.

He looked down at his left hand. Cradled in his red-gloved hand was a note with the name of his next target--

Wait. Red gloves?

“When did I…?” He blinked. He could have sworn that he had been wearing black gloves when he’d fallen asleep…

He shook his head. I must have forgotten, he thought, But… where did these come from? I don’t recall purchasing them.

The bright red gloves didn’t fit his outfit, to begin with, so he probably wouldn’t have bought them. But the gloves felt important to him. Just looking at them filled his chest with a bittersweet, almost nostalgic feeling.

“Someone must have given these to me,” he realized, “But I can’t remember who…”

For now, Akechi didn’t have time to answer his question. As he disembarked the train, luggage in hand, he reminded himself why he had come to this city. The gift he had been granted. The chance to ruin Masayoshi Shido.

I can’t afford to make a mistake now.

He typed “Mementos” into the red-eyed app that he carried, feeling the waves of nausea ripple through him as he entered the twisted subway.

“Now, I believe this one was a subway driver, yes? This should be simple enough….”

#myserious gloves #fic time #ooc #tw gore #tw death

6 notes · View notes

feverdreamsuggestion · 5 years ago

Note

Could you tag your posts as unreality? I understand it being the nature of this blog, but a lot of these posts could be very upsetting to psychotic or otherwise mentally ill individuals. Thank you for your consideration.

i wanna preface this by saying i don’t mean any offense by this response, but given my own mental state i think this is the best i can offer

i feel like the whole blog’s purpose is unreality, so if that’s potentially upsetting, it may be best to avoid the blog altogether. i feel like too much falls into this category to tag is discretely, and i struggle w dissociative stuff myself, so i’m not always sure how far is too far or how much is too much y’know. my own inability to discern what counts as "unreality" to others is kinda a roadblock here.

it’s probably best to assume that all feverdreamsuggestion content will have elements of unreality, and blacklisting the url itself would be best if you only want to see content when you’re comfortable with it. if unreality overall is a constant trigger, i feel like the content will be too harmful to keep up with this blog to begin with. i unfollowed some kinda angsty suggestion blogs years ago because of this. it was fucking with my depression, and while i appreciate the poeticism that went into those blogs, i personally couldn’t follow along because the whole blog was based in/around depression.

i dunno if this is coming across as condescending or not, i can't tell tone over the internet, but i worry that if unreality is upsetting, than it's better to avoid me altogether. i don’t mean that in a rude way - just as a means of self-preservation and self-care.

tl:dr, "assume that all feverdreamsuggestion content will have elements of unreality, and blacklisting the url itself would be best"

#not a suggestion #i moved that last paragraph up from the tags bc i figured maybe its important idk #also - my idea of unreality sometimes contradicts or fails to include what others consider to be unreality #so w an already very unreality-based blog trying to specifically tag what does and doesn't count seems like #kinda out of my ability #i don't mean to come off as insensitive but i don't think i can do this cleanly/clearly/effectively is basically my point #Anonymous

33 notes · View notes

lunarbranded · 6 years ago

Note

🍵+ gatekeeping

Send 🍵for the mun’s salt! || Meme

gate·keep·ing: noun - the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.Tumblr definition: when someone takes it upon themselves to decide who has access to something .

Boy, you know. I’ve been mulling over how I was gonna work with this ask and how to do this post for a while. Actually had the words a few times that I wanted to use but I waited and thought on it. As it turns out, there’s a lot I want to touch upon with my salt in this post. Most of it is general toxic behavior from the RPC community itself and some of fandom but, for the most part, it’s Tumblr bullshit to the extreme.

If you don’t want to see strong af opinions, please keep scrolling. The salt will be under the cut and I understand that most of what I’ll be saying in this post will not be popular opinions.

Gatekeeping Is A Form of Bullying

Ever heard some dudebro go ‘I bet she hasn’t even read the comics’ about a girl wearing a Marvel shirt? What about someone going ‘If you don’t read the books, you’re not a real fan’ when someone’s in line at the theater? Yeah, those are examples of gatekeeping. A couple of the most common ones actually.

As for Tumblr RPC gatekeeping, it’s a bit more like this:

Omg, you can’t write that because it doesn’t fit into what I believe is the only lore that ever exists

wtf why are you claiming that character is gay/trans/bi/ect? they’re not or it would be mentioned in canon

how dare you want representation for your gender identity/race/ect., that’s not okay because it doesn’t adhere to CANON

you can’t ship that because it’s morally wrong and i don’t like it (which sounds a lot like old church people bitching about anything at all really)

if you don’t have the right aesthetic then i won’t follow/interact with you at all

These are just a few examples but most of them are pretty common. And, you know, that’s sad as fuck, to be honest. So many people I’ve met on this side claim to have been bullied but they’re usually the same people who turn around and do this shit to others. It’s unreal to me that they don’t recognize their own behavior. What’s worse is that it can’t be pointed out or people want to use whatever buzzword they can to tell you to fuck off.

If you try to help correct someone, suddenly you’re every -phobic on the planet and you conveniently managed to set their grandmother on fire. The dramatic overreactions of some people have a price and they don’t realize that the emotional response is sometimes not the correct one.

Just because someone is doing something you don’t like doesn’t mean that it deserves a negative action on your part.

‘That person upset me so I’m gonna post a callout/vague post about them!’ Why do you guys think that literally fucking everything needs a reaction? It doesn’t. You don’t have to react to everything that happens. Sometimes things warrant a simple ‘oh that’s fucked up’ and then you move on with your fucking day.

Say you have thirty water bottles. Someone steals one and drinks out of it or whatever but you still have twenty-nine water bottles - why the fuck are you going to be angry all day about that one water bottle? What’s the point when you have twenty-nine other water bottles and you can forget about or throw away the one that was ruined/taken?

You see, that reaction is how you guys act about any one instance that goes wrong on Tumblr except you’re pissed off for a week and you want to ruin someone’s fucking life over a post/thread that you don’t like. Or, in extreme cases, you open blogs to run your mouth at these people. It takes more effort to act like a dick toward someone than it does to just keep fucking scrolling and it’s astounding how ready people are here to wallow in negativity/toxicity.

Puritan Ship/Roleplay Policing

So I mentioned it before, but there’s this super popular idea on Tumblr that if you don’t abide by a certain unspoken ship/roleplay guideline, people will tear you apart over it. But guess what, guys, it’s fucking bullshit.

Since when were people not allowed to make their own opinions on what they did or didn’t ship?

When did it start that people were considered trash for shipping something?

Who the hell made half of you the owners of the RPC so you think you can control what everyone does on their blogs?

You see, this is the same attitude that I see all the time in churches. Oh they’ll tell you to your face that you’re welcome to do as you like and come looking however you want but the second you actually fucking do it, you’re ignored and treated like a social pariah. All this because people love to go around spreading rumors and talking shit about one another all over a fucking hobby.

It’s actually kind of insane when you think about it. Like, you’re arguing over what two people are doing when they’re throwing internet Barbies at one another and you’re stomping across the playground to scream at them because you don’t like what they’re doing when it has nothing to fucking do with you.��Remember what we called that in elementary and high school? Oh yeah, there’s a word for it: BULLYING. And now, it’s evolved into gatekeeping.

This attitude is literally as bad as someone going ‘you can’t sit with us’ just because you don’t like what they’re doing on their blog.

Now, I called this section ‘puritan’ for a reason - “practicing or affecting strict religious or moral behavior.” Does that sound familiar? Because it should. Tumblr wants to call everything wrong and, from what I’ve seen, the hivemind doesn’t want people making their own opinions. Oh and don’t forget, if you don’t already know something then tough fucking luck because it’s ‘not our job to teach you.’ Thanks for the reminder, Susan, but we all know that you’re going to resort to calling people toxic abusers just because they weren’t given the chance to learn something like you were. Because that’s a fucking great way to help people to understand things from your point of view.

Look. What I’m saying is that trying to force everyone into your moral alignment isn’t okay. Some people will write murder and abusive relationships and not romanticize them just fine. The same goes for incest, rape, dysphoria, and a great number of other things. Believe it or not, some RPers actually take the time to look this shit up so they can make sure that they’re doing it fucking right and avoiding romanticization. You know, what you people want them to do but yell at them when you see it trigger tagged without bothering to take a look at the entire thread in question. Goes right back to that knee jerk reaction people like to rely on - not everything is the end of the world.

Callout/Cancelled Culture

This one’s going to be fun.

So we all know that people love their callouts but we also know that people just fucking love cancelling people. Guess what though - you cannot cancel a fucking human being because they’re not a television show. Shocker right? I know.

Now, I’ll admit that there’s some callout worthy topics but there’s some callouts that are so goddamn stupid that I just can’t take either party seriously. Now Tumblr loves dividing people, especially in the RPC. Don’t fucking tell me that cliques aren’t a thing in the RPC because ‘RPing in your bubbble’ is the same as having a clique. It’s the same concept hidden behind another name, don’t try to tell me otherwise.

And yes, sometimes people want to run around and start ‘clique wars’ like it’s fucking high school all over again. Sorry, but no one has time for that shit. Do your replies and keep your nose out of where it doesn’t belong, Barbara. But, of course, people have trouble with this concept and get into fights. It’s natural that no two people are going to agree on the same goddamn thing. It would be ridiculous to expect this, especially on this website, but just because you disagree with someone doesn’t mean that they’re cancelled.

What you think is problematic and what someone else thinks is problematic are likely two different things. And sure, you’ll have people who agree with you and you’ll want them on your side but that doesn’t help because now you’ve created that divide. So things fester and get worse because you want to use your mental illness as an excuse (a popular choice from what I’ve seen) as to why you can’t communicate with someone. Next thing you know, there’s a huge callout against someone and that person didn’t expect it at all.

Knee jerk reactions. Fight gets worse. Divide gets bigger. Toxicity festers.

Well now, there’s this new thing in the RPC where you can get a PSD template and fake fucking screenshots. Sure, it’s for musings and character profiles for things like Tinder, Facebook, ect. Just fun little things for you to throw your characters into and stuff like that. But there’s always that 1% who decide to use it so they can make it look like someone’s said something when they haven’t. So, when that person tries to defend themselves with a full-screen shot of their own (whole desktop or mobile version), things get worse until there’s a giant blowout.

Once the dust settles you get this nice little ‘if you follow x, y, z then you can just block me bye’ behavior popping up. Well, that’s just childish. Unless something happened that was almost a ‘they found out where i live and they’re sending me glass filled cookies in the mail’ situation, then I have no reason to bother with that shit in your rules page. No one is obligated to tell you who they associate with just because you had a disagreement with them. However, if that person chooses to take your side, that’s up to them.

I’m sure damn near everyone has had a similar situation to this happen to them on Tumblr before and, if it hasn’t, were you the one making the call out? If you were, was it worth it? Did it make you feel better? Sure, it might have in the moment but if you’re having that much of an issue actually communicating with others then you should take a step back and work on yourself before you involve other people. It’s like that one saying I keep seeing running around ‘if bad things always happen to you, you should make sure that you’re not the one causing it.’

Now, that’s not to say that I’m trying to gaslight anyone, but 9 times out of 10, I’ve looked back and realized that my own knee jerk reactions have caused a lot of turmoil that I could have avoided had I stopped and thought on it. I’ll admit that because guess fucking what, humans aren’t perfect.

That’s the biggest issue on Tumblr. Half of you expect people to come on here and be perfect from the get go but humans make fucking mistakes and we learn from them. Do we not? How many of you can say that you were perfectly rational and amazing 15 year olds? Absolutely no one because teenagers have a lot of stress and expectations thrown on them while they’re going through a rough growth phase at that time. Things are unpredictable for them and they have school, teachers, friends, and parents throwing all of this shit onto them and then they come on here and have full-grown fucking adults slamming all this shit into their faces. It’s fucking ridiculous. And that’s another goddamn topic holy shit. The way some adults on here act is absolutely barbaric.

Sharing IP Addresses Out of Revenge/Anger

Oh this is something I’ve hated since I found out that Statcounter was a thing. Yes, I run it on my own blog but you’ll never see me sharing IP addresses on the dash. I’ll just quietly IP block you and go about my day, idgaf.

So there’s this huge trend and I’ve seen this on my own dash before (it was fucking disgusting, the response was atrocious on that person’s behalf, and I’ve since hardblocked) and it’s something I’ll hardblock over in a heartbeat.

Now, for those who don’t know, Statcounter has a little piece of code that you can put into your blog theme and it’ll track the IP addresses of people who visit your blog. For me, I use it because I’ve had two stalkers in the past and yes, I keep screenshots of their visits for my own records. Fuck them. First one started the trigger for me and the second one recently exacerbated it. Anyway, if the person doesn’t have something on their browser to block it, Statcounter will pick up on their visit, what links they look at, how long they’ve been looking, their ISP, general location (never their precise home location, just the ISP’s area), browser info, and screen resolution. I’m sure there’s more but that’s all I recall for now.

Having it so you can protect yourself from stalkers is one thing but having it and using it to throw someone’s IP out there is another. When I say that people weaponize Statcounter, I’m not joking. People will go on there after getting what they believe is anon hate and see who the move recent /ask visitor was and start blasting their IP all over the place.

For one thing - people can send asks via the dash. They don’t have to click onto your page at all so, there’s a HUGE risk of throwing out an innocent person’s IP address.

Say someone does this - mistakenly throws out an innocent person’s IP after receiving anon hate. That person is likely going to have a panic attack. Not only have you shared their state and general location but you’ve blamed them for something they didn’t do. Throwing that IP out there, to any fucking extent can create a witch hunt for anyone who has Statcounter to try to figure out who the owner of that IP is.

This is related to gatekeeping because you’re essentially blacklisting anyone who lives in that state/general area from the RPC all because you saw they were in the /ask page. How fucked up is that? It ties right back to the knee jerk response and it shows that people given even a modicum of power abuse it at the first chance. This isn’t even addressing how vicious some people answer anons.

Sure, posting an IP address on it’s own isn’t illegal but when you tack a name onto it, then it is because you’re essentially creating a threat toward that person.

Point of this section - don’t fucking share people’s goddamn IP addresses on the dash, it just makes you a douchebag. I lose all respect for anyone doing this when I find them - fuck you for doing that.

Activism Forced into Roleplay

I used to be in the Marvel RPC. Key here: used to be. Part of the issue that lead to me leaving was how much people slammed IRL issues into RP. Yes, I’m well aware that Marvel comics has a long and deep history of taking on IRL issues and the comics themselves are quite political.

However my issue comes when this is happening outside of the Marvel community.

I’ve seen people trying to force IRL events down people’s throats. ‘You shouldn’t be happy - x, y, and z are happening right now and don’t you dare tell me to be quiet about it!’ Good way to get yourself blocked. People RP as a hobby and, for some, as a form of escape. Immersing into a character to find out what makes them tick is a form of method acting, so it could be said that we’re method writing out characters to an extent. So shoving IRL issues at some RPers can cause them to lose muse or abandon blogs entirely.

Of course, in the same breath, I’ve seen people told that they can’t RP something because they’ve never experienced it, people think they’re romanticizing it, or some other bullshit Tumblr reason. Look, I’ve experienced rape, self harm, suicidal thoughts, CSA (incestuous and non-incestuous), as well as mental and physical abuse. Don’t you dare assume that I cannot write about these experiences in an accurate way and don’t you fucking dare tell me that I can’t write it because I’ll tell you first off where you can shove your bullshit. The fact that people have to disclose that they’ve been through these things so people will stay off their ass on Tumblr RPs is fucking ridiculous too.

You don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot write on my blog when I trigger tag the living shit out of everything to make sure that I’m protecting as many people as I can from seeing it. Do not try this shit with me. Censoring someone because it doesn’t adhere to your moral code is just as bad as banning books, televisions shows, and/or movies.

Censoring something doesn’t solve the problem and boy fucking howdy does Tumblr have an issue with that. Censorship is another form of gatekeeping, by the way! You might not like it but people don’t go to jail for writing about incest or rape, just fucking saying. Oh but there have been crime authors sent to prison, I was suspended from school for writing about murder, but nothing about rape and incest.

Sure, it may raise some eyebrows and people have to actually use gasp! postblock, tumblr savior, and any other method of tag blocking so they don’t see it but uh… that’s called being responsible for your content consumption.

Tumblr Is Not The Real World

Alright. So I’m gonna close this with a good reminder that I think some people on Tumblr could use.

Tumblr is not the end-all be-all of the world.

Yes, you can make some good friends here and that’s fine but when you stay on here too long, the toxicity can start to change how you view the world around you. No, not every man that walks by you is going to rape you. No, not every woman that you see is going to be okay with you treating her the way you do female ocs and canons on here (actually, I’ve met some women who were proud they could make a full-grown man cry with the right look so).

You have to think about how Tumblr makes you view others as well. All this ‘you messed up once so you’re cancelled’ behavior is a social media phenomenon that doesn’t carry on into real life. It just doesn’t. Sure, you can block someone you know IRL but that doesn’t stop them from talking to you if they were a Facebook friend you went to school with. If they still live nearby you, they’ll either talk to you or about you. What are you going to do? Take the Tumblr route and fucking scream at them like an incoherent banshee? No, you’ll suck it the fuck up and you’ll act like a decent person, don’t fucking lie.

You need to understand that Tumblr is it’s own entity, it’s own little sphere on the internet and, by no means, is it appropriate to carry on in your daily life the way some of you do on here. And if you do, please take a moment to stop and look at yourself.

Self improvement starts when you want to improve but gatekeeping, bullying, and acting like a total barbarian to people you don’t know isn’t okay. This goes for the ones you do know too. I’m not saying that triggers aren’t important in the real world but you need to understand that forcing the social climate to change will only make people dislike you. When they don’t want to change, they’re not going to and some will refuse to change to spite you.

Forcing anything won’t help.

Gatekeeping won’t help.

Censorship has never helped.

People don’t respond to being told what to do, feel, or think. Personally, I’d tell someone to fuck off if they tried doing it to me. So why do you think you can do it to others? Ever heard of ‘treat others how you want to be treated?’ Just be fucking decent and stop acting like other people are your goddamn doormat, jfc.

#chainedloyalty #;;bahamut's voice: ooc #;;salt #;;unpopular opinion #rape mention tw #rape tw #csa mention tw #csa tw #self harm mention tw #self harm tw #suicide mention tw #suicide tw #//this is a long post #//there's a lot of salt #//proceed at your own risk #//there's been two warnings - in post and in tags #//don't @ me - talk to me if you want to know more

14 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 6 years ago

Text

Map Editors I Have Known And Loved

Much as my favorite part of any RPG is the character creation screen, my favorite part of any RTS (and many other genres of video game) is the map editor, where it’s included. This is a brief review of different map editing experiences for different games based on the time I’ve spent with them.

Warcraft 2

One of the first, wayyy back in the dark days of the mid-90s. Good for little besides making melee maps, really, due to the absence of a trigger system (as I recall).I was too young to really be able to experiment with its mechanics, and mostly used it as a glorified version of a Paint program, because I liked Wc2′s distinctive art style.

Age of Empires 2

AoE2 is/was a freaking terrific game, but (and probably because the campaigns the game shipped with didn’t need more than it provided) the trigger system of its in-game editor is not super sophisticated. Third-party editors and utilities supplement the default modding tools, and modding AoE2 is easier than ever with the HD edition, but if you want to do something super elaborate you’re going to need to do a lot of quirky tricks and editing of database values. I still love the AoE2 map editor, because I love building huge elaborate isometric recreations of medieval European cities, and then wrecking them with a giant army of Elite Mangudai and trebuchets.

Deus Ex: GOTY Edition

An FPS, but it came with a variation on the Unreal engine level editor that was, despite requiring a fair bit of knowledge about the engine to make it really useful, was still great for a kind of conceptual Lego, building beautiful austere environments with careful lighting you could walk around in (and shoot up with a GEP gun). Again, I was a little too young and a little too impatient to master the subtler aspects of DX level design, like triggers and scripting and whatnot, and the tools provided, though powerful, didn’t hold your hand at all. Still, full marks for making the inner workings of the game robustly exposed to modders.

Starcraft

The original Starcraft and the BW expansion have a lot to recommend them: a great kind of redneck-punk scifi aesthetic, some seriously fun campaigns, and some seriously fun multiplayer (the panic instilled by “nuclear launch detected,” etc.); the map editor was great because it had pretty decent unit editing capabilities, and an extremely good trigger system--plus you could make your own voiced mission briefings, string missions together as campaigns, etc., etc. A lot of what you couldn’t do was supplemented by third-party editors, and playing around with SC’s trigger system trying to get all kinds of weird things to work laid a lot of the cognitive groundwork for learning how to think and clarify ideas when I started learning actual programming languages like Python. Rates very highly on both the “purity of form” and “purity of spirit” scales, but it’s nothing compared to

Warcraft 3

Hoooooooo boy

I have a sentimental attachment to wc3 map editing like nothing else. There were whole summers I spent playing custom games on battle.net, and probably thousands of ideas I played around with in the editor itself, but never quite finished, because let me tell you, this bad boy is as far as I’m concerned the gold standard for map editors. It was released in a somewhat limited form with RoC, but around the time TFT came out, they updated the editor to a much more full-featured version, and they eventually also released all the plugins necessary to make Wc3 models with third-party programs. Combined with the idiosyncratic-but-actually-kinda-useful form of custom game searching, the result was, as anyone with a passing familiarity with the wc3 modding scene probably knows, one of the greatest flowerings of modding creativity in video game history. Out of this crucible of innovation came among other things a deep vein of tower defense maps, elaborations on the Aeon of Strife custom games from SC, and out of those, eventually, the DotA maps--leading to DotA Allstars and thence DotA 2.

The Wc3 editor lets you fuck with literally every conceivable value in the game, comes with an exceedingly powerful trigger system, lets you make custom units and abilities and buildings, and where it can’t do what you want it to, also just lets you script shit directly. I love it so much. It is my happy place; the little “doot doo do do doot DOO” that sounds when you start it up gives me a jolt of delight every time, years later.

Homeworld 2/Homeworld Remastered

Honorable mention to the most fun I have ever had in a melee RTS with my pants on. The maps here are exceedingly simple: you edit them with a text editor. But true 3d space battles--true 3d gorgeous space battles with a 70s sci fi aesthetic--are impossible to underrate in my book, and it helps that the Homeworld series has genuinely delightful gameplay mechanics. It also has a pretty good modding scene, with the inevitable Star Trek and Star Wars and BSG mods, because while the game isn’t super easy to mod, and has nothing in the way of built-in modding tools, it isn’t actively hostile to modding the guts of it like some games I could mention (cough cough Paradox cough). Confession: I’ve never tried to mod HW2. I have played a shit ton of it, though, and I live in the vain hope that one day someone will be like, “You know what? Not only is it time to bring RTSes back, 3d space battles are actually the fuckin’ best,” and make another game like it.

Starcraft 2

I haven’t played around as much with the Sc2 editor, because while I played a lot of Sc2 melee during WoL and HotS days, the actual experience of finding custom games with SC2 blows. Rather than Wc3′s “here’s all the custom games currently going, knock yourself out bub” thing, with Sc2 they tried to start a curated game list thing and added rating games and all this other wacky stuff that means it’s actually kinda impossible to find things 1) that you like and 2) that people are actually playing. I haven’t touched Sc2 in years, though; maybe it’s gotten better? I doubt it. The editor itself is, based on my limited experience, just the natural iteration of the Wc3 editor: a little more robust, possibly a little more confusing at first as a result, but it’s got that same classic Blizzard polish that makes their modding tools such a joy to use. But between the fact that the scifi aesthetic doesn’t appeal to me as much when it comes to making custom games, and the sucky game finding interface, I think I’m mostly holding out for WC3: Reforged to scratch that RTS modding itch.

DotA 2

Valve did the community a huge solid and released its developer tools to let people mod its hat collecting/racial and homophobic slurs archiving engine, DotA 2, but the custom game search features suffer from the same problem that plagues SC2, only even worse. Just give me a fucking server browser!!!! FPSes had this solved in like 1994!!!

It doesn’t help that DotA is built in what is fundamentally, like, an FPS engine (ok, probably that’s not an accurate characterization, but it is the engine they devised for like Half-Life 2 and TF2), which means that the developer tools feel clunky and counterintuitive and wayyy too complicated if you’re thinking of them as RTS modding tools. Plus, since not everybody has the time and the professional pride Blizzard used to have to create powerful, polished, standalone modding tools, they’re not gonna hold your hand at all. And the fact that MOBAs/ARTSes have mostly colonized the space classic RTSes used to fill means that what you really have is, like, 5% of the assets you’d need to actually make an RTS mod for the DotA engine. It would probably be easier to make an FPS in the DotA engine than a true, Warcraft-style RTS. (Someone did once make an FPS in the Warcraft 3 engine. It was... actually kind of fun? But seriously goofy.)

If I were a smarter and more hardworking person, I could probably build an RTS-like thing in DotA’s modding tools, but I am not. Plus, there are elements of DotA level design that suffer from the same problems as

Later iterations of the Unreal engine

One thing I loved about the classic UT engine, which the original Deus Ex used, is that (though it was prone to frustrating geometry bugs) it let you tinker around with architecture directly in the space it provided. I played with the level editors of some later UT games (principally UT3, I think?), and with the push toward fancier graphics of later generations, there was also a push toward use of a lot more doodads and 3d assets in levels to provide what I would think of as basic architectural details. I’m sure there are solid graphical and programmatic reasons for this. I’m a dilettante at best at this sort of thing, and I can’t speak to those. But the downside of that was that unless you have some 3d modeling chops, and a measure of planning and patience, the sandboxy/creative appeal of dicking around in the level editor was much reduced. That’s not a criticism of the tools provided so much as it is a neutral observation and, perhaps, me mourning a little bit the fact that older, simpler games, by virtue of their simplicity, are often more amenable to modding. One thing we lose in an era of ever-more-elaborate triple-A titles is a fundamental transparency in how games are constructed; they become super complex, teetering programmatical edifices, and while that often allows for interesting new developments in gameplay (and shiny graphics!), for the person who wants to learn How Games Work by taking them apart and poking around, well, it’s harder. That’s one reason why I’ve never gotten into Skyrim modding, even though it looks awesome and super powerful.

(the U4 engine “map editor” equivalent is a suite of game dev tools, and sold as such, but I’m not really talking about standalone game dev tools that are meant to allow you to build a game from the ground up in this post, so that’s beyond the scope of what I’m interested in. Obviously the more general and powerful a modding tool is, the more it shades directly into that; and there’s something of an artificial distinction between a “total conversion mod” and “a new videogame,” like that between a musical and an opera, that mostly has to do with spirit and intent and marketing.)

EU4, CK2

I am including these because I love modding these games, even though the “modding tools” for them are Notepad++ and GIMP. It’s nothing but images and weirdly formatted text files (and little documentation), and it’s terrible and frustrating! But I love it! My big complaint is actually the lack of ability to alter fundamental game mechanics: everything you can change about the game easily is the accidence of it: its appearance, the map, what countries and characters you can control. The underlying mechanics--the spirit of the game--is frustratingly immutable, except via very clunky workarounds, and while I understand why you might not go out of your way to make these things easily manipulable (it’s a lot of extra work to uncertain benefit), and why Paradox games rely on an event-driven system that is both like and much unlike RTS trigger systems, it is a little disappointing. But EU4 and CK2 drive very different parts of my imagination (geography and politics and economics) than, say, Wc3 (strategy and fighting and tactical finesse), in the same way that Deus Ex drove yet another part (the architectural, the spatial, the atmospheric). One day, maybe, someone will invent a game that somehow captures everything I love about each, a kind of transcendental game of everything, with modding tools to match, but I doubt it, and I’m OK with it even if that never happens.

Honorable mention: the Civ series

4x games are moooostly outside my scope of interest here, but I do remember Civ2 having a terrific editor with lots of opportunities for modding buildings and techs, and the great thing was that units and cities and terrain were all just very simple images that you could edit with an in-game tool. SMAC/AX was also pretty moddable, had a built in scenario editor/cheat menu, and Civ 3/4/5 have fun map editing and scenario building tools. Turn based games appeal to me a little less inherently, because they lack the thing I love about RTSes, the “oh shit PANIC” moments where you reflexes and quick thinking become super important, but the Civ series does have great strategic and econ management elements.

Other games

There are whole genres of games--Sim City, Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft, the building aspect of 4X games--that capture in small or large part what I love about map editors, with the same build-create-tweak-adjust cycle, though obviously on a distinct footing since they’re making them an actual game rather than a tool with which to create games. It scratches a similar itch, though: it’s all about combining aesthetic design with design of systems. I have a radical thesis which is that every game is improved with the inclusion of a map editor. The existence of a representational, navigable space is intrinsic to almost every genre of game (every game I can think of, though I don’t exclude the possibility that there are ones I haven’t thought of that don’t have that), and being able to use the same underlying rules--or to iterate on those rules--and apply them to a new space, especially a new space you can design for optimum fun rather than just relying on procedurally generated (inevitably samey) space, extends the life of games considerably.

My earliest and biggest interest is in RTSes with map editors, though, because I have a fervent, unquenchable love for the genre. Alas, as noted, it’s a genre that has never been super popular and is currently pretty marginal. THe challenges of making a good RTS engine--nevermind a fun-to-play RTS--are considerable, especially if you care about things like multiplayer (which is my favorite part of RTSes). A lot of entries in that genre now are in some sense hybrid. MOBAs, of course; but games like EU4 have RTSlike elements (and, being pausable, are in some ways the best of both worlds with regard to RTSes and turn-based games). I live in hope that the RTS genre will experience a minor renaissance one of these days, and we’ll get something worthy of being the successor to WC3 or AoE2. If you’re working on that--please, please, I’m begging you, release it with a map editor.

#video games #rtses #modding

10 notes · View notes

theinsanecrayonbox · 6 years ago

Text

Current Packverse setting and players ramblings and art under a cut to avoid dash spam

now fair warning, this has Omegaverse connotations BUT only with those who have the feral genes. other humans, nope; other mutants, nope. only ferals. and ferals come in male presenting Alpha and Omegas; female ferals are actually a mutation within the feral mutation itself, brought about by intermixing with non-ferals. this is also why most female ferals are much more animal presenting too. Alphas are like the standard human male; Omegas are more hyena-like with a pseudo penis, but they don’t give birth via that, they have female genitalia, but a masculine urinary tract; that helps with territory marking after all. gender presents in pups when they’re about a week old, as swelling around the gentalia goes down enough to either reveal testicles or the lack there of. Omegas have a period cycle that’s 30-40 days long, but they go into heat every 3-4 months (so either every other, or every third period). heats can be suppressed (as in the pheromones dampened) with herbal/medicinal supplements, but aside from that is a regular cycle. Alphas do go into rut upon catching the heat pheromones, and anyone familiar with Omegaverse themes knows what that means.

so, still with me after that info dump? want the art and characters now?

Romulus and Remus

yup these guys are in here, some of the oldest ferals still around. Romulus is an Alpha, while Remus is an Omega; as gender transitioning became more a thing, she made herself far more female presenting, but that leads to in like ancient Rome how she was thought of as male, thus the myths about the “brothers”. but since Rom knows how ferals should work, when he discovers that Victor is an Omega, he’s quite interested since those are rare these days (again, that trait is recessive unless the other parent is also a feral), thus also explaining why he made so many clones, to try to increase his potential breeding stock.

Zebadiah and Victoria Creed

Victor’s parents. We’ll get more into the family life after the the next image, but to note is that Victoria here is actually a generation or two away from a native “white wolf” feral Omega. so as Victor was growing up, she’s the one that recognized what he was. whereas with Zeb, he was a bit of a drunk, and would go on religious fueled zealot rants (which makes you winder why he’d marry a woman with “savage roots” huh?)

Luther, Victor, Saul, and Clara Creed

this comes in 2 parts, despite me showing all 4 siblings together, because actually there’s about a 14 year difference between Victor and Saul

Luther is the eldest child, and is male (and most likely an Alpha), while Victor is the second born and an Omega. as i said above, Victoria recognized what he was, and tried to make sure he could pass for male (as in warning him about period and heats, supplying him with the correct herbs to take to suppress the heats), but when that happened...yeah...Luther being an Alpha was kinda shown, since he was affected by the heat pheromones and that was actually the trigger to Victor killing his brother (pie metaphor...yeah...).

when that was discovered, Zeb locked him in the basement and tortured him right; that included him calling him a demon, a monster, in the skin of a man but deceiving with forbidden fruit sorta deal...he also went “you took my son from me so you will replace it yourself” because in his mind, Victor was not his son at all, so there was nothing wrong with this and so...Saul was born. Saul is Victor’s son, raised by his mother as his brother, because his father made her.

Clara is at most a year younger than Saul; Victoria tried to distract Zeb from doing things to Victor with herself as bait, so yeah she fell pregnant too.

Victor broke out by the time he was 16 and he ran away, but a couple years later he went back home and killed his father. he then steppe din to take care of his family, but he couldn’t really deal with Saul’s presence due to what he meant to him; the only reasons he didn’t kill him was because his mother begged him not to. thus the years of abuse he inflicted upon him, yet not on Clara.

Victor/Sabretooth, Saul, Clara Creed

after Victor forced Saul to disfigure Clara, she convinced him to run away. Victoria kinda lost it, so Victor set her up somewhere safe, and he went off to try to track down his siblings. Meanwhile, they went to the circus and had the adventure with Logan, which ended with Logan killing Saul. so when Victor finally found his sister and learned what happened, he started his hunt of Logan, because even though he hated what Saul was, he was still his pup.

Clara learned the truth between Victor and Saul from Victoria on her death bed (maybe even unintentionally, she might’ve had dementia at this point), many years after the death of her brother. She’s still around, and though she understands a bit now, she still won’t forgive him for what he did.

Victor went about his life normally, maintaining a regiment to keep his heats in control for the most part, and using birth control and also typically not taking male sexual partners. When he joined Weapon X with Logan though, they discovered his Omega status, and thought that breeding tehir own feral fighters was a great idea (probably Rom’s idea honestly). so they attempted to force a breeding between the two, but Victor escaped and gave birth to a still born son. this is why they all thought that Laura and Kyle were related to him, because they were both created by Weapon X. this would also explain why, to create Weapon H, they went and took samples from OML and Victor, despite the two being so similar, because Victor’s feral mutation is actually slightly better due to him being an Omega.

Graydon, Clarice (Ferguson)/Blink, Kyle (Gibney)/Wild Child, Hudson Creed

Victor’s kids!

Graydon was actually carried by Victor; when he was starting to get serious with Leni Zauber/Mystique, before they actually had sex he told her the truth about him being an Omega. Mystique, realizing she hadn’t yet proven her own gender identity as Leni, decided to say she was a transwoman. so Mystique impregnated Victor, and the pregnancy went unrealized until the last leg of it so at the birth, when Mystique claimed the child was stillborn, Victor didn’t question it; in reality she stole Graydon away, but when he didn’t display any powers, abandoned him as usual. so the years later when Victor meets Graydon he’s honestly shocked to know he was alive, and actually didn’t believe his claims of being his kid, since you know, he can’t sire children, but Mystique confirmed it, so yeah.

not pictured, but to note; while Victor was working with Frank Payne/Constrictor the two of them slipped up a few times while drunk and did sleep together. Victor did fall pregnant, but he miscarries, and never told Frank.

Clarice is his adopted daughter, rescued from Sinister’s clutches when he was with Birdy; her family gave her to Sinister to “cure her mutations” when she was young, and he refused to give her back to her family. this also led to the three living at the X-Mansion for a coupe years while Victor raised his kids and Birdy’s death is what made him leave.

Kyle was part of the Weapon X shenanigans (more of that below with Laura). it turns out that while with Weapon X, they harvested eggs from Victor, and Kyle seems to be one of the children born from that. it was assumed that Logan was his father, but there’s been questions of that now. Kyle is an Alpha.

Kyle and Clarice end up working for X-Factor when their both adults as a couple.

Hudson is Victor’s youngest (and he’s still unborn/a baby, not the adult shown here whoops lol) and his biological father is Old Man Logan. Victor went into heat while with Weapon X-force (over usage of healing factor neutralized his suppressants and birth control) and OML, either not remembering that Victor was an Omega OR his Victor wasn’t one, went after him, and succumbed to the heat pheromones. OML wanted Victor not to have Hudson, so Victor left the team for a time and started training Belle instead, before eventually going back and bringing her with him. pretty sure Hudson’s an Alpha, but i’m not settled on that yet since as i said, he’s still either unborn or a baby right now.

Laura Kinney/Wolverine, Bellona (Kinney) Creed/Talon, Gabby Kinney/Honey Badger, Kylie Kinney/Sabretooth

as stated above, when Laura and Kyle first showed up, it was thought that they were both created using Victor and Logan’s DNA from their “breeding project”. it was kinda disproved though that Laura was...at least in a large enough sense. HOWEVER, Alchemax seemed to actually do that; with each new clone iteration they created of Laura, they changed the genes ever so slightly, hoping to encourage a healing factor (since this was post T-mist). so while Laura has maybe 5% Victor in her, Belle and gabby both have more from a combination of them using Victor’s eggs as a base, as well as modifying for the healing factor. this led to Belle’s eventual mutation being the Creed claws, rather than the Howlett ones.

After SHIELD takes custody of Belle, and her mutation triggers and she “sheds” her old skin, Victor is offered the opportunity to take custody of her to help acclimate her to her powers and what not, which he does. she then goes back to Weapon X-Force with him and is part of the team.

Kylie is from an alternate reality where Victor and Logan’s roles were reversed (good/evil at the least) so she’s in essence the Sabretooth version of X-23.

all 4 of them are female. in Laura’s case, the didn’t use the Omega genes from Victor so she doesn’t have any of those. Gabby and Belle might have some of those, but not enough for them to affect them. also, Belle might be sterile due to her albinism.

Logan Howlett/Wolverine, Old Man Logan, Daken, Jimmy Hudson

yeah, the Wolverines are included because they are important.

Logan did not raise Laura here, Victor did; he refused to because he thought she was part Victor, and since Victor was kind of living with the Xmen for the time, he just ran away from his responsibilities like usual. after a couple years he did get over himself and try to reconnect with Laura before his death, but he never reached out to Kyle in the same way.

OML’s from the dystopian future, but whether it’s this settings’ future or another is now debated, since in his past he raised Laura, while here he didn’t; could it be age mixing up his memories or just reality shenanigans? in any case, as stated above, he’s Hudson’s biological father, but wants nothing to do with him. he’s...trying to push victor to be better sure, but having a kid...he is afraid that because Hudson is Victor’s child, that means he will go bad. he also was not fully in favor for Victor training belle, since you know, he kinda has a thing against Gabby.

oh and both Logans are Alphas duh

Daken’s pretty much unchanged. he’s an Alpha, and thanks to Rom’s upbringing, knows about Omegas and all that stuff. he’s accepted Laura and Gabby as his sisters, debated whether he’ll do the same for Belle (since she identifies as a Creed), and he does not claim Kyle as his brother but he doesn’t hate him or anything.

Jimmy’s from the Ultimateverse where they didn’t have the Alpha/Omega dynamics, so i’m still in debate if that just automatically makes him an Alpha, or if he’ll have a transition period as he fully adjusts to this reality and might present as an Omega. he doesn’t really interact with the others much...i just like Jimmy

Arkady Rossovitch/Omega Red, Lazar Engel

included despite not being a feral, because Arkady is Hudson’s adoptive father, and Belle’s adoptive father/best friend

Omega Red is pretty much the same save for this specific point; he’s always been gay. when they did the super solider treatment (which they were more willing to do to him, because his orientation meant he was more expendable) they made him a eunic because 1) gay people are bad in their minds and 2) it’d mean less distractions for their weapon (you know, no emotions = perfect weapon). also with the radiation in his body, it was just less body parts to worry about i guess. when he was resurrected, he was brought back intact (yay new body) but when SICKLE got him, his brother Vassily probably made sure to repeat the process...because he hates his brother...but then again, with better medical stuff now, maybe he was just given a vasectomy instead of a full genitalia removal.

Arkady and Victor start a relationship when he joins Weapon X-Force, and oddly kinda falls in love with the idea of being Hudson’s father, since he never thought of having kids (because evil weapon, and also was unable to). he also connects with Belle, and the two become bffs real quick too, which leads to him and Vic hooking up even more i think.

Lazar is one of Red’s clones...or a clone of one of his clones. Belle finds him when trying to hunt down Red after Victor’s death, so the two of them wind up teaming up and bonding over the whole “clone of a clone” thing. when the whole family finally gets back together, Arkady and Lazar are a bit apprehensive around one another, and the debate of “are you my son or brother” comes up, but Lazar follows Belle’s lead and just calls Arkady his father.

#my art #digital art #My writing #Packverse #omegaverse themes #mpreg themes #belle creed on weapon x

3 notes · View notes

xaracosmia · 3 years ago

Text

ꕥ — WELCOME TO EXO COSMIA, SATURN. 🌑

ꕥ — OOC INFORMATION;

name / alias: meg age: 25 pronouns: they/he ooc contact: @myrtlenaster on twitter other characters in xc: neptune, aisling “e’ralle” yuudai, harukawa maki

ꕥ — IC INFORMATION;

name: saturn age: 26 pronouns: any ( she/it, mainly ) series: heaven will be mine canon point: post-memorial foundation ending app triggers: existentialism & unreality, depersonalization, human experimentation, war, children at war, cosmic horror, implied grooming/abuse. the latter will not be mentioned in any capacity in-server, nor will it be discussed at length in saturn’s app. however, the implications are present in the source material so i’m tagging it regardless.

personality:

the interloper prototype string of pearls was created to be piloted by someone with reckless abandon and little care for their personal health and safety. it’s equipt with electrotoxins- a theoretical matter that shouldn’t exist- that irritate and eat through the mechanical interfaces of other ship-selves. it cannot be destroyed, and it will only pull itself back together. it’s a wicked and deceptively cute ship- with sharpened claws and a poison-dipped tail barb. but it’s also giddy, eager for freedom and for a life of adrenaline highs.

the ship-self was designed to be an outward expression of humans in space. most pilots had ships custom made for them, just as most pilots had personalities developed over time.

saturn didn’t. saturn had to steal more than just a ship.

saturn was not brought up to have a personality. if you asked her, she’d tell you she didn’t have one. much like the ship-self string of pearls, saturn had to steal her personality. she’s pieced together a few things about herself- that she likes flirting, she likes girls, she likes bothering people, and she doesn’t have any interest in listening to rules that may weigh her down.

saturn’s much smarter than she lets on. she has to be, given that she was molded to be so perfect she was boring. but she doesn’t always flex that intelligence and will let her impulse and desire for excitement win over in the end. it’s gotten her into trouble but, eh, who gives a shit? she had fun while she was doing it, right? that’s what matters the most to her. she’s selfish like that; wanting to get only what she wants and nothing else. hell, she even wants more than just what she wants. she’ll take whatever she can get.

saturn often forgets, though, that she’s still a human being. or, at least, 99.999% a human being. her ship can repair herself, but saturn cannot. saturn would much prefer to ignore it and she does ignore it. ignores how vulnerable she is, how angry she is, how hurt and lost and confused she really is.

something your muse struggles with: feeling human, and feeling like she’s a person. though saturn is happy to laugh and goof and play her role of the local court jester, she struggles to know who she really is past all of that. your muse’s greatest strength: spite. it’s more than just a motivator for her; it pushes her to do what’s right. she’s a good person who wants the best for those around her, even if she adamantly refuses to admit it.

history / background:

the third generation of pilots brought to space to combat the existential threat were not given the same treatment as the generations before them. with the first generation, the memorial foundation had no idea what they were getting into. with the second, they treated them with care- let them grow at their own case. come the third, they had no time to waste in turning children into pilots- cutting as many corners as possible.

saturn was a result of that. they cut out the whole “nurturing and raising” part of her life- instead rushing straight into making sure she was perfectly built to combat the existential threat. and saturn took kindly to that- you could even say she was perfect. so perfect, in fact, that she was too perfect. she was boring- undesirable, and tossed aside before she could even fight like she was supposed to.

and it stung, to be brought up the way she was and praised the way she was- only to be tossed to the side like she was nothing. like she never would be anything. that stinging soon grew into a desire to get back at the people who took everything away from her. and it became such and intense desire that it pushed her to steal a prototype being made in orbit of the planet cronus. to leak the illegal mech’s details and kick off an eight-day-long war.

to push forward the belief of celestial mechanics but turn iapetus’s ideals in the favor of herself and her best friend, no matter the cost. also, if she’s lucky, maybe kiss a few girls on the way.

powers / abilities:

N/A

inherent abilities:

narrative bleed - a more primitive version of pluto’s own abilities. saturn cannot read the hearts and desires of others around her so keenly; but she’s able to get very small inklings into what they’re feeling or thinking.

saturn in particular can utilize her narrative powers to subtly influence the decisions of others or play into her own whims and wants. think of it like playground rules. “no, you didn’t do that actually!”

for the sake of fairness she can rarely do this and i’ll always ask permission before having her cheat that way.

items / weapons:

INTERLOPER PROTOTYPE SHIP-SELF “STRING OF PEARLS” - described as an existentially horrifying ship-self designed on a secret lab orbiting cronus. its very existence broke a peace treaty, but hey! saturn stole it anyway and it’s hers now. it’s cute and looks like a kitty cat! if you ignore the massive claws. each property of the SOP will be earned back individually by saturn as she ranks up!

ELECTROTOXINS - a theoretical matter that probably shouldn’t exist. it’s like if liquid lightning and venom had a baby. electrotoxins mostly have an affect on machinery; causing them to seize up and cease function.

REGENERATION - oh, yeah. the string of pearls is constantly regenerating and healing itself- making it almost impossible to destroy. this regeneration is much faster than typical ship-self regeneration.

CAPTURE CABLES - cables that, for some reason, only the string of pearls has! she can use them to you know. capture other mechs, people, etc.

DEFYING DISTANCE - saturn can “glitch” forward at seemingly random intervals- to get closer to whatever she’s targeting and grasp them. it’s usually only by a few feet.

starting ability: N/A starting item: the string of pearls, please! but without any of her abilities.

extra:

blue hair and any pronouns

oh yeah saturn is also technically part of pluto and LT’s eventual polycule. she’s like their thirdwheel that somehow manages to make everything infinitely worse by existing.

can you believe celestial mechanics stole her fursona and turned it into a ship? funniest shit i’ve ever seen.

i don’t need to say she’s a polyamorous lesbian but she is.

also she’s a capricorn. january 9th!

oh uhhh also she does reflexively use she/her pronouns when describing the string of pearls/i’ll also do that in narration for her. so sorry if that gets confusing.

discord id: ♄ INTERLOPER PROTOTYPE#0005 passcode: i break dance ontop of the mech

#mun: meg #exo cosmia #xc application

0 notes

directionlessbuthappy · 7 years ago

Text

Dawn of the Draugr: p1

In a pre-apocalyptic world, there is Elyse, a 21 year old woman who was going to community college in her small town in Northern California, working on biology and medicine courses. Doing what young adults are expected to do at her age. But her future spirals into uncertainty with a pandemic spreading across humanity. An illness which infects and shuts down the body, reanimating the brain and turning the person into something only seen in repetitive shitty movies and your nightmares. Being on her own, Elyse would have to lose her morality or sanity to survive. Maybe both. However, she may be able to keep them now that she’s found Alex Lothbrok and his brothers. Or, she may lose it even faster…

Modern AU: Alex H. Anderson x Reader

Warnings: graphic violence, language, blood, death

Note: I kept the last name Lothbrok for the brothers to distinguish characters vs reality. I doubt they are anything like the characters (based on them for visual purposes) I’m writing, so I prefer to add an element of unrealism here to reiterate this as fiction. Cheers xo

Tagged: @missrobyn81

It wasn't a normal day.

Everyone likes to think when the world ends, it'll start out totally normal, and you'll have no idea what's happening or whats coming. You won't see it until its too late. People sell it that way for drama, for TV shows and the movies, but its not real. The truth is, you do see it. The warning signs are everywhere, but without someone telling you to run, you aren't sure if you should. People are like sheep; they don't know what to do without instruction. When the epidemic spread from South America and Asia, nobody here was worried. We had central America in our path, and a whole ocean separating us from Japan. It seemed like the black plague at first; killed massive amounts of people over the last two years. But since there were minimal cases of it here in the US, nobody was worried.

For a while.

My family was split; my mom and I were alone most of my life. She married a man who already had two kids. I was an adult at that point, indifferent to the pairing but still living at home. Going to community college. Everything seemed normal despite everything we were seeing on the internet and on TV. Coverage of the epidemic was getting less and less clear as more people were panicking and packing up their things. Our whole neighborhood moved out in a week. Northern California felt safe enough, we hadn't had any sightings/cases of epidemic here. There was some in Texas, and Arizona...

One day after a phone call, my mom told me she was going with her husband to go get his kids. It was their week to visit us, and their mom wasn't comfortable driving on the roads with how crazy it was getting out there in Washington state, so my mom and her husband planned to go get them. I was in denial, in a way...not really considering how bad it was yet. it felt eerie, being home alone after that. Our little three bedroom, one story house on Sweedland Way felt like a mansion while I waited for my mom to come home. I'd stopped going to school; we'd got an email that class was out due to teacher shortages. Out, indefinitely. I remember when I got my first taste that it was all real, not some widespread panic about the cold.

I was sitting in the living room, checking through a few websites that hadn't posted in over a week. I was studying animal medicine in college (when I was still going) so I understood a lot of technical jargon when reading on the epidemic. All the articles and different notes on the contagion were unfinished; even Wikipedia was useless in explaining what it was. Most researchers first found it in South America, comparing the disease to a virus hiding behind the symptoms of bacterial infection...making it less concerning in its early stages. Researchers didn't catch on until about 6 months in, when more hospital staff were infected verses healthy. Infection was mostly caused by saliva, whether its ingested, gets in your eyes, or most commonly seen in the reports I found...you get bit. Like a rabies virus on cocaine, the disease ravages your system and fries pretty much everything...except your spinal cord and your motor function. The nervous system was preserved by the disease and regenerated itself; the body would be able to function, move, and respond to things like noise. But otherwise...

I didn't like to entertain the idea the dead could come back to life. That wasn't true, it was science fiction bullshit. Granted, I loved cheesy movies where the dead would rise, but that was all they were. Movies. If anything, these sick people were just very sick...maybe it was a new type of cancer, that was why it scared people so much.

I was wrong.

...

"See the sight lined up to the chest?"

"Yeah..."

"Shoot it."

"But I need to hit the head."

"I know Elyse. Take the shot."

I swallowed and pulled the trigger. The gun popped against my chest like a light bump, and the bullet went straight through the target's "neck." I was surprised.

"It aims high!"

"Bingo," Alex replied. "Its the only red sight we have. Jordan can't get the tilt quite right but it still works eh? Now aim at the neck."

I do so, trusting his word now more than before. I squeezed and the gun pops; the bullet hole in my target's head was clear. With a giddy squeal, I aimed to take another shot, but missed. Alex grinned from behind me, I knew this because when I turned he was already doing it.

"Nice shot."

"Shut up," I replied, faintly hurt. He chuckled and outstretched his arm for the gun. I handed it over, safety on.

"Wanna try with the handguns?"

"Actually..." I whined. Holding my arm up to show off the bruise blooming on my tricep, Alex frowned slightly. "Can we take a break?"

"Sure punkin," he shrugged. I still took the time to roll my eyes at him before sitting down on a hay bail. Our little training field wasn't too far away from the house; Jordan and Marco could still see us from the second floor's porch. We were safe, mostly. The treeline that surrounded the house on the hill made me the most nervous, especially at night. Jordan called them "fight nights" for fun, but he was good at making others feel better. I could see right through it. Just like I could see them coming through the treeline every other night.

Sometimes it was just one, sometimes a pack of them. They traveled in groups pretty often. They're always so listless, walking like they were drunk and heavy and yet they weren't slow in their pace. They'd drag their feet, and although they were responsive to sound, it didn't seem like they understood anything. From the material I've read and studied in the last couple months the disease is as unpredictable as its victims. Sometimes you'd die in a week...sometimes it only took 24 hours. But if you got bit at all, you were fucked no matter how long it takes to die.

"Jordan's still not worried about the ammo?"

Alex shrugged, taking a mag and shoving it into the cartridge of his 47. "We have enough to get us through a month of assaults. You and Marco are the only ones worried."

"We have enough for a month of assaults with automatics, Alex. Our handguns are limited. They're attracted to noise, and we can't haul ass with ten pound metal death machines on our shoulders!"

"We'll be fine. If you're really that worried, go down the hunt shop on West 10th. They'll have something," he replied coily. I scowled at him.

"That's not funny."

"Was I laughing?"

"Alex!" I snarled. He had the sense to look a little upset, sighing once he realized he'd actually upset me.

"I'm kidding Lees," he muttered. "I'll go with you tomorrow. Would that make you happy?"

"Are you being sarcastic again?" I replied warily, buttoning my flannel up and down with the same button. Alex took a few shots, turning the head of one of our dummies into swiss cheese. He put so many holes in it the head actually fell off. It made us both chuckle.

"Do you want me to go on my own?"

"No!" I squeaked instantly. Alex grinned and turned his back to me, lining up the sight of his automatic again. The kid was growing on me...

#alex hogh andersen #alex hogh imagine #alex hogh x reader #zombie apocalypse #the lothbroks #post apocalyptic #writings #modern vikings au #dawnofthedraugr #modern au

52 notes · View notes

finallyalone · 4 years ago

Text

Safety

It’s been a really solid week overall since my last update, yet with some really acute lows/scary moments sprinkled in. Fortunately, none of those lows turned into day+ long spirals, and I was able to recover plenty quickly from all of them. I’ve had a couple “good days” in there for sure, so overall, encouraging.

In my low moments though, one word kept coming to mind as I was sitting with the experience: safety. Well, more accurately, “unsafe” -- the complete, utter, lack of safety I was feeling in the moment.

I’ve mentioned many times (particularly on the old blog) about feeling unreal, almost. Here is a quote from a more recent post on my old blog:

But this type of experience carries a different weight, something I’ve explained before, in that it essentially makes me feels unreal. At the very worst moment of say, my Dad dying, I still knew deep down in my soul that I would be ok; that I would be safe and secure and would be able to find meaning and purpose and joy in my life with Jess and my family and my friends and my future child. As hard as it was, intuitively, I knew the pain was temporary and fleeting, and while it would shape me in ways I didn’t know yet, I still knew who I was and I knew my life was real, and I knew I wanted to be in it.

But these moments - which have gone on for 19 months now - are a whole level beyond that, again, in that they basically make me feel unreal; I cannot reconcile this experience directly with some external loss, and feel that intuitive sense of knowing I will be ok. In these moments, it’s as though I am experiencing the full loss of self, and thus I don’t feel able to “ground myself” almost in something I know, since it all feels “gone.”

Gosh, that experience is so strong, so visceral, and I’ve experienced it so many times over the last couple years. And I’m realizing now, unreal ties in very closely with unsafe for me.

While I suppose I’ve long known this, recently in therapy was the first time I fully realized/accepted that these intense experiences with feeling unreal/unsafe really are responses to the trauma of the complete collapse of my identity/sense of self. This can be particularly messy too, since not only was/is my realization of the collapse itself traumatic (in a more broad, deep way), the “moments of realization” have often led to extremely difficult moments that become their own traumatic memories in a way. For example, even driving by a certain restaurant where I was having a really bad spiral experience at the time (which was in response to an intense trigger at the time) can trigger massive anxiety in me. The end result is a lot of anxiety and a lot of triggers, so it can be difficult to navigate.

So yeah, that unsafe feeling? That unreal feeling? They are connected. The same, primal, part of our brains that evolved to protect us from predators -- from death -- now attempts to “protect” us from psychological death. Experiencing the complete loss of self feels like death, so of course I feel unsafe and my mind/body responds accordingly. At the same time, without our sense of self to help us stay grounded and feel “real” in an otherwise often scary and chaotic world, life can become unrecognizable...unreal.

To heal though -- to learn to accept, adjust, cope, reconcile, soothe, etc -- we must first feel safe. But if, like I did, we spent our whole life relying on our assumptions about (and our place in) the external world to feel safe, we are in grave danger when we finally see the true reality of the external world. I have had to face that fully, and it’s scarier than anything I’ve ever experienced.

So at 36 years old, I’m relearning how to feel safe -- and feel real -- but from within this time.

One day at a time.

0 notes

finsterhund · 4 years ago

Text

tired and weak

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to bounce back.

I don’t know if I’m stable or functional right now.

I am no longer spending days weeping, getting the violent psychotic meltdowns or other overtly physical symptoms but I don’t think I’m okay.

But I can’t keep myself shut up not doing any of the things I like to do online because isolating myself is not helping me. I only did it because my psychotic episode was causing me to hurt my friends. I did this for them, but it’s not helping me beyond cutting off things that my psychosis could latch onto. It is more than capable of doing it on its own.

I am coming to terms with how my situation is not healthy, it is not sustainable, and it is not safe.

I feel that I am not safe and I do not have anyone I can trust. That my environment is unhealthy and is continuing to retraumatize me and that I am not receiving adequate care.

I am unable at this time to tell how much of this is delusion and how much is that people in my life are actually a danger to me. Psychosis is like that. But things have been getting clearer on many relationships and issues.

My roommate told me that he is going to be writing a letter to the landlord to try and convince them that I need to get my service dog and if that works I wouldn’t need to take it to court. But I can’t tell if that’s just an empty promise. I feel like I am being told what I want to hear in an effort to keep me under control. That I am being satiated just enough so I don’t get violent or kill myself. But that my environment is never going to improve in its current state.

There’s been a lot of empty promises. And with my psychosis makes the already difficult issues impossible to navigate.

I am very disabled. I know I type really well and talk a big game, all bark and no bite though basically. Truth is I am unable to take care of myself. And with covid and me being high risk I don’t know if I am capable to put myself into a new situation/environment where I can thrive at this time. I am at the mercy of whoever I can find as a guardian. This is not healthy, and is something that I cannot yet find an escape from. All that it seems I can do is hold on and wait until an opportunity presents itself, to submit to the freeze and fawn response until I’m able to make my move. A move I will need support that I can’t even begin to wrap my head around to make.

Obviously “cringing and waiting” isn’t something that severe mental illnesses are going to be play nice with. And this is why I am unstable.

I must stress that I am not an independent. I am not functional in society as an independent. And even with my service dog this may stay the same financially. I am stunted, slow, whatever gentle word you want to call mental retardation. And that on top of debilitating mental disorders and trauma disorders prevents me from functioning on my own.

I cannot have a job. I cannot leave the house by my own. I have a learning disability surrounding numbers, time, math, etc. I am slow enough that it is extremely difficult for me to go about daily adult tasks that most people take for granted. My physical body being shit just ads to that and makes me slow in an equally useless and infuriating way.

It is very easy to take advantage of me. And the combination of me being a dependent when combined with that is dangerous for my health.

I will be making a doctor appointment for the explicit purpose of getting a note to try and pressure the landlord. I know that once me and my service dog are a working team more opportunities to become more independent and to get myself out of this situation will be presenting themselves. But nothing can happen immediately, yet at the same time I am suffering from things not being resolved immediately.

I am living in a way that is constantly exposing me to stress and pain. And I have acknowledged I need to get out of it but don’t yet have the means to know how.

I do have friends who may be capable of helping, but the virus has put a roadblock on that help for now.

Things like moving, programs for people with disabilities, hospital visits, etc. have all been made impossible by the virus.

I have ruled out moving back in with my mother. Even though she has improved and I definitely see her as a victim of abuse and living with undiagnosed mental illnesses of her own it just is not safe for me to live with her.

The only thing I can do now is make the effort to try and protect myself from the things that are hurting me emotionally that I am currently incapable of getting away from.

And trying to push towards my dog.

Everything else is waiting for things to be capable of changing.

I have pinpointed what I believe triggered this week’s psychotic break. Residual trauma from the first Christmas spent knowing the holiday killed Zippy, combined with frequent exposure to traumatic stimuli and unhealthy power dynamics, financial and social stress, as well as an increased lack of support regarding being invalid.

I am not in a healthy situation.

I began to sniff out bad people with the intent to keep track of them to make sure they weren’t planning to hurt me. This is the same maladaptive strategy I have been using to make sure my birth father wasn’t planning to kill everyone at my mom’s house way back when. In reality, exposing myself to the evil culture of bad people is not helping me psychologically. And I am powerless to actually kill them like I wish I could. But I felt like I had some level of control knowing their every move after I have no control in the situations I am spending my daily life in. It’s like drinking a poison so you can ignore a gunshot wound. I wish I could treat the wound, but drinking the poison makes me forget about it for a while. Both are unhealthy, but the act of creating a new problem makes it easier to ignore the initial one that I have no ability to change. At the cost of my rapidly fraying mental stability.

My environment is not one that I can control. And it is not one that I can currently fix or leave.

For my safety I am not capable of going into detail about certain people and their effect on my health. Being a dependent means that this directly can threaten me at an already vulnerable time.

I need to get out of my current situation, but am incapable of doing so. This has caused an extreme amount of stress to build up to the point that my antipsychotics weren’t enough to keep me safe. I was told that even being on anti psychotics you can still experience episodes and down periods. Which is scary to think about.

But I have no avenue to change this situation at this time.

I do not know if I am fit to hold communications with people right now. I will not be returning to social groups until I am told explicitly that it is okay to do so. By my primary care physician, by my psychiatrist, and by the people I socialize with themselves. But I will now state that anyone may come to me with the explicit understanding that I don’t know if I am rational or mentally safe right now. You will be communicating with me at your own risk and understand that I may still be experiencing heightened amounts of unreality and delusions.

I am no longer experiencing violent symptoms. I have made the steps to prevent myself from doomscrolling and keeping tabs on my abusers. But I understand that I am not above the possibility of lapsing back into doing this.

I am now on my pain meds again. Being off them for an extended period of time was likely contributing to my psychological pain despite these meds themselves not being addictive, the relief they give me might have been.

I am currently only with 3 dolars in my bank account and 5 dollars cash. I will be getting paid in 12 days. I should have enough food to last me this long. It is stressful, but I was already anticipating this situation to happen at this time.

I am extremely sorry for allowing my delusions and sickness to hurt innocent people. It was not my intent to cause pain to others. Whilst I would like to explicitly remind people that my mental illness directly influences how I perceive reality and this can make it impossible to tell if I am justified in my actions at times, it still doesn’t make up for the pain it may cause in the process.

Friends have expressed pain at me saying that I am not recieving help and nobody is helping me despite them trying to support me online.

Please understand that I appreciate the energy you are sending my way, but I am explicitly venting about my living situation that you nor I have any way of fixing. In the future to help my friends not feel like I am ignoring their attempts at helping me I have created this disclaimer that I will be putting on posts about situations that online friends cannot help or change. I hope this will alleviate the pain of your efforts not solving my problems.

I appreciate everything people try to do for me, even if my mental illness makes me not see it at the time. I understand it is very difficult to be close to someone who doesn’t perceive reality properly all the time, and I may not always show it when I am being helped due to one issue being immediately replaced by another, but I do appreciate.

I have been told that despite me being clingy that I tend to push people away and isolate myself when I am hurting. This is because I was abused and treated badly for expressing clinginess. This included targeted stalking when I was still a minor. My brain had it beaten into me that if I was clingy towards people they would hate me and not want to be my friend. As a result I experience clinginess by violently wishing I could be close to them while trying to hide that from them and give them space. If anything this presents itself as persecutory jealousy. It is something I am trying to stop doing.

I also apologize for friends trying to do things with me, encourage me, socialize with me, and me being too exhausted to appreciate or join in. This is equal parts my distress at my living situation, my mental health, and my physical health. I spend most of my life far too exhausted to consistently socialize except for manic periods where I am desperate to do so. Again, the solution to this issue is post-covid changes to my living situation and the resources I have access to.

The point that I think sums this up though is that I cannot keep living like this. I will continue breaking down, I will continue having episodes, and I will continue lashing out. Violence is and always has been my answer to fear in situations I cannot change or leave.

I don’t know if there’s a way to fix this during covid, but I KNOW there isn’t an immediate way to fix this before I get my service dog.

Additionally: I do not want to be institutionalized, being trapped in a psych ward when you are not explicitly a danger to yourself or someone else will only make you worse, and calling police for “wellness checks” on disabled people who have ugly/scary mental illnesses will get them killed. Please understand that the system itself will not help me. I need to find a different solution. This unfortunately does involve jumping through hoops that I cannot at this time.

Again, I would like to state that I will be trying to return online, but I will not be engaging with people who haven’t explicitly come TO ME until my doctor, my psychiatrist, and those people themselves, let me know that I am allowed to do so. Please be advised that I may not currently be in a safe place mentally.

I will be trying to interact with art and media that I enjoy with minimal social contact with people outside of those who have come to me and are okay with that. Stressful things i will make every attempt to ignore.

#text post #negative #long post

0 notes

panticwritten · 7 years ago

Text

Breaking Furnace Book One: Lockdown

Chapter 4: Friends Don’t Let Friends Lose Prison Fights

I’ve had to change quite a bit of formatting to post this on tumblr because I am a fiend when it comes to using different fonts and tools and junk in my writing. If you want to read this chapter with its original formatting, you can do so here.

Table of contents!

All of my writing!

Remember that this is a daydream taking place in the Escape From Furnace universe, so keep that in mind if you haven’t read EFF.

Word count: 4835

Triggers for this chapter:

Unreality

NAZI imagery

Graphic(ish) violence

Death

NSFW (on the same level as a still-life model is nsfw)

Body horror (sort of)

Always willing to tag new triggers, if needed.

Chapter 5 will be up Jan 26th at 7pm PST.

If you like what I do here, maybe consider buying me a Ko-fi or checking out my Patreon! I love being able to put so much out for free, but this would be a great way to show support and also see cool new content!

~-S-~

Alex and Zee, stop me when I leave the trough room. I try to greet them with a grin to let them know that there weren’t any problems, but I’m not sure how successful I am.

“You were supposed to go to your cells,” I say, more as a formality than anything. “If there had been a lockdown, you could have been stuck down here.”

“You know we can make it up, no sweat.” Zee laughs uneasily. “What were you doing in there, anyway?”

I laugh, not so uneasily.

“Letting the Skulls think I was seducing their leader.” Or actually seducing their leader, depending on how you look at it. “No sweat.”

“I thought we were trying to ally with them,” Alex says.

I beckon them to follow me across the yard. It’s too open out here.

“I challenged Kevin to a fight.” They look even more worried now. “Whether I win or not, it means the same thing—protection and communication.”

“You will win, right?” Zee clarifies. We arrive at my cell, and I pause at the threshold.

“I might.”

They both start an argument at the same time, and I sigh.

“Look, I put certain limits on the world this time. I'm just a person if I can’t concentrate.”

“Does Kevin know that?”

I frown at them both. “Are you two worried about me? Or yourselves?”

They exchange glances.

“We can protect ourselves. Kevin can be a monster, and if he’s expected to act like one…” Alex looks away, and I follow his gaze to see the Skulls trooping out of the trough room behind Kevin. When he looks back, I give him a tight smile.

“Don’t forget who I am, Alex. I’ll be fine.”

He doesn’t look so sure, but I decide to let it lie. I can’t deny that even I’m pushing my trust in Kevin to the absolute breaking point.

I sweep my gaze around the yard and sigh, drained. “I’m gonna go rest up.”

“Lockdown isn’t for awhile, I don’t think,” Zee says, giving me a worried frown.

I shrug. “I know. I’ve got a trick or two up my sleeve to keep unwelcome guests out.”

After some more debate, they leave and I enter my new home.

The cell itself is about the size of my bathroom at home. A toilet, metal and starting to rust, sits affixed to the wall straight ahead. The bunk bed jammed into the far corner doesn’t look very reliable.

I shake my head and look back out through the bars to the yard. There’s no better time to do this than now, I guess.

With a sharp exhale, I breathe out an illusion, a shield between my cell and the yard. As far as they can see, it’s an empty room. Looking out, the world warps slightly, as if I’m viewing an aquarium exhibit. As if I’m not part of the freakshow.

I shove the thought from my mind and vault into the top bunk. Some sleep will do me well. It’s been a long day, only made longer by my meddling with time. Then there’s the nectar. The weight of it here is starting to get to me, like a recovering addict in a meth house.

Not that I’m really recovering. I’m here after all, and that means that I’m back for more of that filth. The essence of it in the air here is so thick that I can almost taste it.

Gazing at my hands, I hold on to the humanity I still have. This version of me has never had nectar, even if I remember the thrum of it. I wonder how long it will take me to ravage this body.

My track record isn’t good, so it’s best not to ponder it.

I turn my eyes to the inmates milling around in the yard. They don’t even realize what’s happening beneath their feet. Oh, they know something’s wrong. They have to know that the Warden, the suits, the wheezers are all wrong. But they don’t know just how bad it is, the experimentation, the death, the evil.

I catch sight of Connor on the other side of the yard, talking with another inmate. He looks annoyed, and I try to imagine what they could be talking about. As I lay down, as close to the wall as I can, I wonder if he was right.

Maybe this isn’t healthy.

~-S-~

I sit in a cell, looking out. This isn’t Furnace, the world outside a brightly lit hallway. The cell itself is smaller, empty save for myself and a foul odor.

No, this isn’t Furnace.

It’s a dream.

I stand, legs weak and shaky, and press against the bars to peer into the darkness. The opposite wall is lined with doors, and I recognize it as the cell blocks back in the Cube. Stepping back from the bars, I cross my emaciated arms.

This isn’t a normal dream borne of the nectar. The feeling of calm, while unsettling, isn’t what I would expect from my first night in the prison. This isn’t a view that I ever wanted to see with my own eyes, looking out from this side of the cells.

No…

I cock my head to listen, freezing as the ghostly wail floats through the hall. The voice is unfamiliar, and I disregard it after a moment. These dreams are nothing more than memory, there’s nothing I can do.

After a moment, the image flickers. The light disappears, and I blink until my eyes adjust. The cell stays firmly around me, but outside a spiral path twists up and connects my cell to countless others. Each of the other cells hold several children.

Ah. This is more like it.

Between each cell, on the other side of the room, a red banner hangs with a swastika emblazoned on each. Now we’re back in the memories that the nectar favors. I grimace and turn away.

There are several other kids in my cell now, all unfamiliar and all pleading. None of them seem to have the strength to stand, so I kneel alongside them.

It’s okay, I murmur. The words that come out, I don’t understand, but the meaning is clear. This isn’t the end.

Talking to the boys in the memory, I still feel a twinge of guilt about lying to them. Each of these boys will be dead or under the wheezers’ knife by the end of the week. I’m sure they can see the truth in my eyes, hear it in my voice.

Still, they cling to my arms with fingers as thin and fragile as twigs. I sit in the middle of this group, three little boys holding onto what little hope they have left.

Still, we hold each other when boots begin to thud up the path.

We hold each other when they stop outside of our cell.

Even as I’m being dragged away, the boys try to hold on. It breaks my heart, the question and fear in their eyes. Cold metal pushes against the back of my head. Even as the shot rings out, one of the boys’ voice echoes in the darkness.

This isn’t the end.

~-S-~

I shout out, the phantom pain the back of my head pushing me upright.

My skull makes contact with the ceiling, and I can’t hold back a curse. Slowly, as my heart rate slows and I remember where I am, I rub my head. The ghost of a hole in the back of my head fades, but the real pain on my crown still throbs.

Welcome to Furnace.

I chuckle, tired, and turn to look into the yard.

The only light in the prison is the softly glowing screen above the elevator leading to the surface. For all I know, this could be another trick of the dreams to send me spiraling further into Furnace’s hell.

Although I know I should sleep longer, I end up swinging out of bed and dropping to the ground before I can think better of it. The light from the screen would have kept me up, anyway.

I pace, running through the plan. I always feel like I’m forgetting something. The world could end, and I’ll still feel like I’m forgetting something.

I don’t know what plans Cross has, so it’s all up in the air after we break out. If all goes well, we should be back on the surface within five months.

If not, we’ll likely never see the surface before we end up back in the Cube.

After that, well…

“Hey.”

I jump, thrown off balance. A blacksuit sits next to my cell, his silver eyes fixed on me. I drop to the floor next to the bars and can’t help a smile.

“Hey, kid. What’s up?”

“Just checking on you,” he says. “We were starting to wonder if you were ever showing up.”

I smile but don’t respond. Many of them were happy with their life in the Cube. I told Connor to give them the option to stay there with the Scouts, but they chose this. I don’t understand it.

We chat for a while. I ask about the Scouts, but he claims to have been in the universe too long to remember any details. When he turns it around and ask if they’ve contacted me, I pull conversation back to the prison.

“Look, I need to tell you something,” he says, lowering his voice. “Down there, he’s doing something to the new recruits. Rumor has it, he’s trying to turn them against you.”

A weight settles in my stomach, cold and heavy. I sit in silence long enough for him to look back at me. I try to calm down. This is how the game is played after all.

“Is it working?”

“Not yet.”

I can’t suppress a sardonic laugh. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but our mutual friend is an ass.” I rock back on my heels. “I’m done pulling punches. You guys deserve better than that prick.”

“So, you’re going to kill him?”

I don’t answer, standing and turning away. I chew the inside of my cheek, already drifting away. He seems to take my silence as an affirmation.

“I don’t blame you,” he says, his chuckle a soft growl in the darkness. “We’re all rooting for you. Good luck, Sawyer.”

I turn back fast enough to catch his wink before he turns away, and I wonder how he knows about my name change. Connor, maybe?

I wonder how else he busied himself while he was waiting for me.

Watching the suit go, I’m left in the cell by myself. I stare blankly at my bunk and wonder just what the hell I’m doing here. It’s hot, I’m underground, and everyone here wants to kill me.

What am I going to do when Cross gets his little experiment to work? I resume pacing, allowing my fingers to itch at my forearm. There really isn’t anything I can do about it for now. It’s not a problem.

Until it is a problem.

I climb back into my bunk to put together ideas on how best to end my brother’s life. From here, there isn’t much I can do. An inmate in his prison, he could choose to kill me at any time.

After thinking on it, I make up my mind. I allow myself a laugh, the sound becoming a shocked squeak when the lights suddenly come on. Jolting upright, I smack my head against the ceiling a second time.

“Shit!” I hiss, pressing the heel of my hand against my throbbing forehead.

Still, I heave myself out of bed. I only have to wait a few minutes for the bars to rattle open.

I almost leave, but I hesitate with a glance at the bed. I’m just a little worried that someone will target me and ruin my stuff. They did it to Alex, after all, in the original books.

When I turn around, Kevin stands in the doorway. I start, more surprised than anything. Isn’t his cell on the fourth floor?

“How fast did you have to run to get down here?”

He ignores that, nodding to someone out of sight. Two Skulls step in front of my cell, and I sigh. “These'll make sure you don’t slip outta our match, sweetheart.”

He flashes me a wicked grin and leaves, the others staying in my doorway. I watch him go, brow furrowed. He’s getting really into this charade.

The two cronies don’t move when I start for the cell door, and I pause. With a swift glance, I appraise them. They still don’t move.

I smile.

“If you don’t move, I’ll be forced to move you myself.”

They exchange glances and smirk. Still, they stay in place. I sigh and shrug.

My hand twitches, and they crumple to the ground as one. Their eyes glazed, they struggle and fail to find their feet.

“You shouldn’t underestimate anyone in a place like this, you know.”

I catch Kevin watching me from the door of the trough room when I start over there myself. I don’t acknowledge anyone while I grab a tray.

This time, I successfully acquire a meal.

I do my best to force the sludge they call food here down my throat. It makes me think of runny Malt-o-Meal, so it tickles my gag reflex more than a little.

The two boys I floored are just entering the mess hall as I stand to leave. I feel them glowering at me, but when all three of us find ourselves in Room One of the chipping halls, I note with satisfaction that they find a place on the opposite side of the room with their picks and hard hats.

I fantasize about breaking Cross’s face in while I work. No one tries to start shit, thankfully, so I’m able to stew in my own head until the standing guard calls for the ed of the works day.

I have no idea how much rock I cleared, but the anger lingering from the assault leaves my throat thick. I need to control myself.

I don’t realize how sore all of this turns my muscles until I have to stop. Trying to use my arms for something other than swinging a pick at a wall? No thanks.

Still, I fight through it and drag the thing back to the equipment racks. On the way, I roll my shoulders and try to work the kinks out of them. By the time I abandon mu equipment and enter the shower rooms, my arms and back almost feel normal again.

If I can excuse the underlying ache in my entire body, that is.

I always forget about this part when I decide to come here. The communal showering part.

The room is an open space nearly identical to the chipping rooms we just left. Red walls, red ceiling, rough around the edges in every sense. The only differences are the drain fixed in the middle of the floor and the water sprinklers overhead.

I can feel eyes on me as I shed my paper shoes and throw them into the corner with other crumpled bits of clothing. I steel myself, swallowing every anxious thought I have, and my overalls quickly follow the shoes into the pile.

There’s a wolf whistle and gloating mutters, but no one comes closer than a yard to me. They must be too scared of Kevin and the Skulls to risk approaching me.

While I’m grateful for that, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m left naked in a room full of teenage boys that haven’t seen a titty in years. I keep my arms resolutely crossed over my chest.

With a hiss, icy water cascades from the ceiling. The cold sends a shock through my body, but once I get used to it, it’s a godsend. A drink of lemonade on a hot day. A swim in the middle of summer. A nice shower after hours of work.

I’m enjoying the spray, tucked into a corner, when I catch sight of Connor across the room. He’s talking with one of the boys Kevin told to keep an eye on me, not looking particularly amused.

Then he shoots a shocked glance at me and laughs. The boy looks taken aback, and that quickly morphs into irritation. Connor can’t seem to take the conversation seriously anymore, and the boy eventually walks away.

Connor looks at me as if sharing a joke and shakes his head.

The moment the water stops, I step into the first clean set of overalls I find, now that the dirty ones have been replaced. I half expect Connor to come find me when I enter the yard, but he walks by without a backward glance to join several Skulls at a table.

Something about Connor wearing the Skulls bandana feels wrong. I loiter next to the opening to the chipping rooms, watching him. His sandy hair is longer than I’ve ever seen it, falling down his back past his shoulders even with the cloth on his head.

He looks up, turning curious eyes on me for just an instant before returning to his game. None of the Skulls seem to have noticed. I shrug and move on, reaching out my awareness to brush his as I pass. He returns the gesture, though his voice doesn’t waver at all in his conversation with the Skulls.

I head for an opening in the rock just under the first set of stairs to the upper levels. It’s guarded by two inmates, but they don’t stop me. I brace myself before entering the gym, knowing what to expect.

The exercise machines must have all been moved to the side years ago, leaving a ring in the center. The rock has been worn down, stained a deep red by the blood shed here mixing with the firey dust lining the entire prison. The room is still empty, and I cross to the center of the circle. Bending down, I rest my fingertips on the dark floor.

I can feel the pain of the hundreds of inmates beaten bloody on this spot. If I try, I could probably feel the evidence of my own fights, the ones from other worlds. All of this hurt can’t be limited to this one. If all of these universes are connected by one place, I could almost believe this is it. I always thought it would be the island or the tower, but—

“Hey.”

I slowly stand and turn around to face Kevin. He only has one Skull with him, hovering in the doorway.

I don’t say anything, just stand in the center of the bloody ring. I'm too aware of my aching muscles, all of the weakness. I don’t know if I’ll last long in a real fight against him, and I don’t know if he knows that or not.

I step back, to the far end of the ring. He steps into it, motioning for his buddy to stay back.

A few others show up, but the first keeps them from entering the room. The newcomers are forced to watch from the doorway. Kevin seems to be waiting for the crowd to grow, which I can appreciate.

He wants a show. I’ll be sure to give him one, then. I put on an easy smile. Arrogant, self-assured.

“So, big boy, you still think this is a good idea?” When I slip into a confident stance, he does the same. Good. This would have been exhausting if I’d had to hold his hand through the whole thing.

“Pretty damn sure. You having second thoughts?” We’re slowly circling each other by now. I hope he’ll make the first move. I’m much better with defensive work than offensive.

A small timer appears in the corner of my eye.

He gives himself away somehow. A subtle tensing, or a change of expression. He doesn’t pull his hand back, but I can still feel the punch coming. The timer starts. In the split second I have to react, I make a decision. This is how it will go. It takes all of my willpower to merely throw up a shield of thought.

I don’t move.

My shield protects me from the worst of it. The pain, when his fist connects with my gut, isn’t that awful. I still double over, though, and he slams his elbow into my spine. I try to protect myself with another shield, but I can’t focus enough to make it form.

This one hurts.

I cry out, my mind racing for a way to salvage my pride and avoid obviously throwing the fight. The moment his hands leave me, he kicks me to the ground.

This is good, I tell myself. Barely two seconds into the fight and I’m already getting wrecked. I take a moment to assess myself internally and find that the damage is minimal.

Thank god.

I stay down, feigning groans of pain. The boys outside cheer in the background, feeding the static hissing in the back of my head.

I hear Kevin approaching. Slowly, calmly.

I take in a breath and focus. I can do anything if I can keep my fucking head. I visualize what I need to do, imagine it, run the reel over the back of my eyelids while I wait.

He stops.

Now.

I slam my hand against the ground, kicking out to sweep his feet out from under him. My momentum brings me stumbling to my feet.

I wait for him to scramble to his feet, then I catch him in the jaw and grasp his shoulder to keep him from reeling back. He has just enough time to realize what I’m about to do and start to twist away.

He’s too late.

I swing my knee up to kick him between the legs. I shove him back and watch him fall. He’ll recover, and it’s his choice whether this continues or not.

I try to gather myself, but I don’t have time.

He comes up again, his stance still awkward. His nose bleeds freely, but he does nothing to stem it.

I shrug, smiling. “Haven’t you had enough?”

He grunts in response and rushes me. It’s sloppy, and I could easily trip him. Instead, I sidestep and push him square in the back. His momentum throws him out of the ring and back to the ground.

He gives me no choice if he’s refusing to actually fight.

I stride to him and plant my foot on his back. I lean down, whispering so the crowd can’t hear.

“Stop holding back.”

I clench my fists, then loosen them. This is the choice I’ve made. This is the way it needs to go. I hope it’s the right thing to do.

The moment I move my foot, he jumps up swinging. I block it and counter with an uppercut to the stomach.

He cringes, coughing, but he takes advantage of my occupied hands before I can really recover. He takes the opportunity to jab me in the throat.

I stumble back, retching.

Fuck, that hurt. It distracts me enough that I don’t notice his fist until—

Flashes of light blot out my vision.

I realize that I’m on the ground, and this confirms it: It’s over. My shields still won’t come up, the static filling my head until his next strike seems to come out of nowhere.

In a moment of panicked delirium, I wonder if it hurts to kick someone so many times with paper shoes. It has to, right?

I think he’s saying something, but I can’t hear him. The ringing in my ears diminishes before he finishes, though, and I hear the crowd cheering. He nudges me onto my back, smirking.

“Looks like you’re mine, sweetheart.” He doesn’t wink. He doesn’t give me any sign. I guess I deserve this for egging him on so much. “What? No jokes? Nothing?”

He kicks again.

It brings a little life to my mind when the shield I try to throw actually absorbs the hit.

This boy has no self control, and he gets carried away so easily. I wonder briefly if I made the wrong choice. I glance at the timer, grimacing at the blinking 38.47 seconds. Such a short fight, and I’m a mess. I split my lips into a weak, bloody smile anyway.

“You’re such an ass,” I mutter, barely loud enough for him to hear. I don’t think I could speak louder if I tried. His face twists into one of anger, and he moves to kick me again.

“Kevin.”

He freezes.

I slide my gaze over to see that Connor has pushed his way into the gym. His eyes are hard, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

“What do you want?” The bloody boy demands without turning.

“What did I tell you?” Saying nothing more, he watches him steadily.

Kevin slowly lowers his foot and steps away from me. As the crowd outside begins to dissipate, I struggle to sit up. Connor shoves past Kevin and kneels at my side, pressing me back down.

“What did you do?” I ask, cringing at the blood filling my mouth. That’s not right.

“I told him that he wouldn’t survive the week if you can’t stand at the end of this fight.” He smiles and cups my cheek with one hand, his other lightly resting on my stomach. His eyes go out of focus for a moment, then he sighs in resignation. “You’ll need to fix that.”

“It’ll be fine. I have something to tell you,” I murmur. “It’s important.”

He hushes me before I can continue.

“Later. You have to deal with the consequences of throwing the fight. Dummy.” He pats my cheek and stands.

He calls for the remaining Skulls to clear out. He looks back once before leaving me alone with Kevin again.

Kevin paces near the door, and I watch him warily as I slowly sit up. My head spins, blood is still trickling down my chin, and my body feels like a disaster zone, but I can still move. I’ll be fine.

“Did you really throw the fight?”

I narrow my eyes, trying to focus on Kevin. He’s stopped pacing, watching me now. I wipe my mouth and stare at the blood on my hand. I need to find out what Connor saw in there. After a moment, I look back at him.

“Yeah.” I give him a tight smile before spitting out a glob of blood. “You still won. Just make sure you keep your end of the deal.”

He takes a step toward me, but I raise a hand and he stops. I chuckle weakly and rest the same hand on my midsection. Pain lances up my sides and I have to force myself to calm down.

“Oh, shit,” I hiss, probing my awareness around my organs. I find a few ribs cracked, one broken, and… “My liver's bleeding, hang on.”

Kevin watches in horrified fascination as I phase my hand into my abdomen. It takes a minute for me to find the rupture and run a healing finger over it. I do the same with my ribs and slowly check for other damage I may have missed, but I don’t find anything.

Everything is fine.

I pull my hand out and wipe most of the blood off on my overalls.

“That’s crazy.” I can hear the uneasiness in his voice before looking and seeing it on his face. I shrug.

“This is nothing.”

I spit more blood out and wipe any remaining grossness off of my face with a sleeve. With this done, I heave my aching body upright and stride forward to stop directly in front of Kevin.

I put on a demure mask when I look up at him, reaching a hand out to cup his face. I catch a hint of a flinch, and it makes me smile.

“It’s time for you to go brag about your victory and for me to slink back to my cell. Enjoy this while it lasts.” I pause, patting his cheek. “Boss.”

#writing #my writing #bf #sawyer #connor #tw: naked bodies #tw: graphic violence #tw: body horror #maddart #bf writing #the collective

2 notes · View notes

gwgamesterm1 · 5 years ago

Text

Creating a HUD and Timer

Creating the Assets:

Instead of using Photoshop like most of the class, I decided that I wanted to use illustrator, specifically I wanted to use the pen tool to ensure that the elements would be clean and precise. After creating a Health and Armour Bar that was far more Sci-fi in design than I intended, I copied the elements into Photoshop where I had a canvas that was the same size as our games resolution, I did this so I could see how the HUD would look before importing it into Unreal.

Once I had imported the PNG versions of the assets into Unreal, I used the “Apply Paper2D Texture Settings” Sprite Action so the assets would have the transparent background instead of the default black box that occurs when you import PNGs into Unreal.

Implementing HUD Assets:

I have used three different methods to program the the HUD, two for text and the other for health bars, this is because the integer based health system isn't compatible with progress bars. On the note of a progress bar functioning as a healthy bar, I've already created a post about that as well as the float health system.

In regards to the two text based methods, I've already written about one of them and its very similar to the progress bar, the other which I'm going to write about now involves actually changing the text inside the player blueprint instead of just binding the widget to a variable.

To start this process we need to create a Widget Blueprint for the HUD and place a text box inside of it, then promote the Text to variable by simplifying ticking the box inside of the details panel. We then need to go into the Player Character Blueprint where we'll turn the HUD Widget Blueprint into a variable, this is done by way of creating a Variable inside of the Player Blueprint with a HUD Variable type, then we need to Set that variable by dragging out from a BeginPlay event we want to make a Create Widget Node where well choose our Widget Blueprint class, then that shall run into our Set variant of our HUD variable that, turning the Blueprint into a variable inside our Player Blueprint, then to make the HUD appear on the screen we want to use a Add to Viewport node.

Now we have a variable, we need to actually use it to change the text. For a text based Health system, its incredibly easy, all you need is an EventTick so the Health is being constantly and then that must be connected to SetText node with the target of the Text box from the Widget Blueprint as well as the Widget blueprint itself, we can do this because we have already promoted these two to variables. Finally, we just need to connect the Health integer to the SetText's In Text.

Making and Changing Crosshair:

The Crosshair is the HUD element that resides in the centre of the screen in most shooters, it’s purpose is to help the player aim without them having to aim down the sights of their gun. Some game’s like Call of Duty or Battlefield use a dynamic Crosshair that is affected by the character’s movement and the player firing their weapon. We went the static Crosshair route, which is more akin to older FPS’s like Half-Life and since the default Unreal FPS project uses a static Crosshair, all we had to do was design a new asset and swap out the old one.

The original Crosshair that comes with the project has a resolution of 16 x 16 pixels, so to keep it the same size the new asset would need to have the same resolution. This necessitated the use of the pencil tool while designing the asset in Photoshop because the default brush doesn’t create clean lines at such low resolutions.

Creating a Timer:

Adding a timer can add an interesting aspect to a game, usually by creating a sense of urgency for the player and it is relatively simple to accomplish with some simple maths.

First we need to create two integer variables, one for seconds and another for minutes. Next we need a system that will add one minute every time the seconds hit 60 then the seconds would reset to 0. To start this we need an Event Tick with a delay of one second, this will slow the Event Tick down so instead of getting an input every frame, we will only get an input every second. In order to turn those inputs into a usable value we need to add in a Set Node for the Seconds integer along with an Integer + Integer with the Get Seconds node in one input and set the other input to a value of one, this system causes the Seconds integer to go up by one every time the input is fired. From here we need to detect whether the seconds have ticked over into minutes, this is done by plugging the Seconds integer into an Integer >= Integer Node and making it the condition of the branch. If the branch is True we need to Set the Minutes integer and add to the variable by creating an Integer + Integer with the Get Minutes node in one of the values and the other value set to one then this needs to be plugged into the Set Minutes value, this will add one to the current value of the Minutes integer, allowing it to increase every sixty seconds. In it’s current state, the seconds will continue to count up over sixty even though it needs to reset to 0, so to use a Set Seconds not with a value of 0, this will set the seconds back to 0 every time it’s triggered.

Displaying the Timer:

Getting the Timer onto the HUD is a near identical process to the one earlier in the post, but with one difference and that difference is that we're now trying to display two variable instead of one which necessitates the use of the Append node. This node combines multiple text inputs and allows them to be displayed by one text block, at least in this instance, I'm sure it has a variety of different uses. For this use, we need to add a third pin to the Node, then place the Minutes into the first slot, type a colon into the second slot and place the Seconds into the third slot. We now have a functioning timer.

Uses for Timers:

0 notes

gore-400 · 8 years ago

Text

Title: Rules

Rating: Mature

CW: abuse, torture, canon-typical violence

cross-posted to ao3 (here)

There are so many rules. Yoonbum is getting better, learning them, always trying to make sense of them. Wash your hands before touching me. Wash your hands before and after going to the bathroom. Dry the sink off with a towel, every time. Don’t overfill my cups. Don’t forget napkins when you serve me.

He wishes he could just make sense of them instead of having to be taught them one at a time, every time.

But he'd learn, either way. He'd figure it out, eventually. He has to figure it out, eventually.

Yoonbum jolts awake when Sangwoo puts his key in the door. He never sleeps deeply anymore, the faintest noises always wake him up with a start. It’s better than the alternative. It’s better than being caught off guard. He was never a deep sleeper to begin with. He gets up; it’s not safe to be laying down when Sangwoo comes home. If he’s in a bad mood …

It sounds like Sangwoo brought home bags, like he’s setting them down on the kitchen counter. Food, probably. Groceries. It’s unreal to Yoonbum that Sangwoo still goes out, every day, interacts with everyone like everything is normal, while Yoonbum is trapped, here.

Sangwoo swings the door to the spare room open and looks at Yoonbum piercingly.

“Do you know how to cook?” he asks, not bothering to greet him.

“Y-yeah, a few dishes.”

“Good. I’m hungry. Make something good.”

“Okay.” Yoonbum starts crawling to his chair in the hallway. He wasn’t expecting this. It had been almost a week since he’d been let upstairs, and Sangwoo had never asked him to cook before.

“Are you surprised? No shit you’ll do the cooking. Do you think you get to live up here scot-free?” Sangwoo laughs. “Are you a deadbeat, Yoonbum?”

“N-no.”

“Hm. Are you sure? You sure look like a deadbeat, and act like a deadbeat … you’re gonna have to to prove to me that you’re not. Hurry up.”

“Right, OK,” Yoonbum says shakily. He wheels himself to the counter, starts looking through the bags. Kimchee, pork belly, chives, onions, soft tofu, all wrapped individually in plastic bags and tied off with a tight, neat knot.

“You’ve made kimchee jjigae before, right?”

Yoonbum nods, feeling Sangwoo’s gaze boring into him. He doesn’t being watched like this, but there’s nothing he can do or say to change it, and they both know it. Yoonbum is glad, at least, that Sangwoo picked one of the few dishes he knows how to cook. Then he realizes that eventually, he’ll pick something he doesn’t know. He tries not to think about it. He’d deal with that when it comes up.

He opens the first layer of plastic around the pork belly and sets it on the counter, then rolls his chair over to the stove and starts heating a pan. Maneuvering in the chair is still awkward. Yoonbum is always terrified of bumping into things, making a mess. He has to keep his cool. Any misstep could mean an explosion. At least Sangwoo doesn’t seem to be in a mood today. Yoonbum is getting better at reading him. There are some days when Sangwoo looking for any excuse to kick him until he coughs blood. Kicking and kicking and kicking away at him with that dead look in his eyes, like Yoonbum is just a toy that he wants to make squeak in new and interesting ways.

But not today, he isn’t like that today. Today he seemed … fine, but even “fine” meant Yoonbum had to tread carefully. Fine could easily tip into not fine. Yoonbum had been learning how to dance around Sangwoo’s triggers, but not fast enough to keep him safe every time. He wishes he could just ask, so that he could make Sangwoo happy without having to make him so upset first.

He doesn’t like to think about the times when the rules contradict each other. It’d only happened a few times. Sangwoo had beaten him for not apologizing, and beaten him for apologizing too much. He’d cut into his thigh with a paring knife for filling up Sangwoo’s water cup too high, and he’d punched him in the stomach for failing to fill it high enough the next time. Those times … those were flukes. Those were just middle grounds that Yoonbum had failed to parse. There had to be an underlying meaning to it all, and Yoonbum is just missing the key that would make it all make sense. He’s getting closer to it, he can feel it, he’s figuring it out.

Yoonbum washes his hands in the sink. Sangwoo likes him to wash his hands before he touches him, has taught him how to do it. A full 30 seconds of lather with a generous amount of soap, hot water, thorough rinse. It should hurt at least a little, you’re burning the filth off. Yoonbum dries off with the towel on the stove – replaced, like clockwork, every day, so that it didn’t get too dirty – and rolls back over to the counter. He tears a hole through the plastic wrapping around the pork and pulls a strip out. He’s halfway to the pan when he feels Sangwoo’s hand on his shoulder.

“What are the fuck are you doing?”

Yoonbum’s stomach sinks.

“P-Putting the pork on-“

“With your hands, Bum?”

Yoonbum looks at his hand, holding the pork. He doesn’t understand, but he knows he fucked up. He’s failed another test, broken another rule. He knows he needs to apologize, but doesn’t know for what, and Sangwoo hates “placating bullshit.” Sangwoo grabs his arm, hard, and Yoonbum yelps. He drops the slip of pork, hears it land on the laminate floor with a sick slap.

“You touched it. Do you have any idea how filthy your hands are?”

“I just washed them,” he tries weakly.

“It doesn’t matter. They’re still filthy. There's no amount of washing you could do that could fix that.”

“I’m sorry-“

“You’re fucking disgusting. The entire strip is ruined. You ruined it with your filthy hands.”

“I won’t do it again-“

Sangwoo doesn’t listen. He lets go of Yoonbum’s arm and rolls his chair over to the stove. Grabs his arm again. Pulls it towards the pan.

Panic takes over. “No! Sangwoo, please, I didn’t know-“

“You should have known, you fucking pig.”

Yoonbum resists. He’s weak, so much weaker than Sangwoo, but adrenaline helps make the fight at least a bit more than laughable. He feels the heat emanating from the pan, but he’s able to struggle enough, Sangwoo can’t bring his arm down like he wants to. He might be able to talk his way out of this, he can convince Sangwoo he didn’t mean it, he’ll never do it again-

“Please, Sangwoo, don’t please-“

Yoonbum’s vision goes dark when Sangwoo slaps him upside the head. He slams the chair into the stove, knocking Yoonbum’s knees into it hard. Sangwoo leans down and slaps Yoonbum’s cheeks, forces him to focus and look at him. He’s angry. Annoyed. And amused. Something about this is funny to him.

“Take your punishment, faggot, or I’ll make it so much worse for you later.” Yoonbum looks into Sangwoo’s expressionless eyes and realizes there’s no way he’ll be able to talk his way out of this. Not this time. Sangwoo wants to punish him. “Are you ready to take it?”

There’s only one right way to answer. He nods.

“Give me your arm.”

His arms shakes as he raises it.

Sangwoo smiles. “Good dog,” he says, his voice viciously warm. He takes Yoonbum’s arm without much force. He knows there’ll be no more fight, and there isn’t. He brings it to the stove, again. Calmer this time. Firm, steady. Presses it to the pan.

Yoonbum screams. Jolts back, tries to escape.

Sangwoo holds him there.

Yoonbum can’t think of anything but the need to get away from the pain, escape from the pain. He tries to pull his arm away, involuntarily, but Sangwoo easily keeps him in place. The smell of charcoal forces itself into his throat, strangles him. He’s vaguely aware that he’s begging for Sangwoo to stop.

Eventually Sangwoo lets go. Yoonbum gasps for breath. Recovers slowly. The pressing sense of emergency dulls into searing pain. His arm is a throbbing welt of fire.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Tears stream down Yoonbum’s face, but he nods. He feels faint. He feels like he’s somewhere else. He’s watching this from somewhere else.

“Be glad I didn’t burn your hand. It’d be hard for you to cook like that, wouldn’t it?”

Yoonbum doesn’t respond. Doesn’t look up. But he nods. Sangwoo says something else that Yoonbum misses, he can’t focus, Sangwoo is talking so much and-

“Bum,” he says, sounding a little annoyed, and Yoonbum’s mind races. He knows he’s been asked a question, and he needs to answer. He tries to figure it out, but he can hardly think of anything that isn’t the throbbing pain in his arm. But he has to, he has to-

“Did you touch any of the meat here? Be honest and I won’t punish you anymore.”

Yoonbum thinks about it and nods.

“Where? Point, don’t touch,” he snarls, as if Yoonbum would even consider touching it again.

Yoonbum points.

“My-my finger just brushed this part, just a little-“

“Mm, okay.” Sangwoo draws a heavy knife from the cutting block. Yoonbum’s pulse races, his blood goes cold. He should have lied. He should have lied, why didn’t he lie?

“Please,” he says, his voice shaking and pathetic, “Sangwoo, I didn’t know, I’ll never-“

Sangwoo laughs and pats his shoulder gently. “Relax. It’s not for you.”

Yoonbum cautiously looks up to see Sangwoo chop the pork belly, a few inches off from where he’d touched it. He carefully wedges the knife between the two chunks. Makes sure there’s no overlap, then carefully removes the part Yoonbum had touched. Contaminated.

“If you just brushed it, we don’t have to throw it all out, just make sure to rinse it off before you cook it. The first strip, you got your filth all over. Fucking all over it. But if it’s just a little, we can quarantine it.”

Yoonbum nods as if he understands. Sangwoo seems to think he’s explaining something entirely reasonable, but it makes no sense. Yoonbum has to make sense of it. His arm is still a throbbing center of pain. He has to make sense of it. He has to understand the pattern.

Sangwoo throws the contaminated section into the trash, then opens the cabinet under the sink. He pulls out a box of disposable latex gloves.

“Use these.”

“Okay,” he says weakly.

Sangwoo tosses him a pair, and Yoonbum scrambles to put them on. They slide on too easily. They’re much too large. They’re sickly off-white and feel vaguely powdery, and dangle limply from Yoonbum’s gaunt hands and wrists.

Sangwoo notices.

“God, you’re so skinny. I’ll get some in your size tomorrow.”

“OK,” Yoonbum says. “Thank you.” His voice sounds strange and dead in his ears.

“Mm. And?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Yoonbum can’t bring himself to look at Sangwoo as he forces the words out. “I’m sorry I touched the food with my bare hands.”

“Good. You should be. We had to throw out a lot of pork because of your fuckup. Stuff’s not free, you know?”

Yoonbum nods. Sangwoo pulls out his phone, and Yoonbum gets back to cooking. The red skin on his arm throbs with every move he makes. The burnt charcoal smell still lingers in his nose, his mouth.

Don’t touch food without gloves.

He’d remember next time.

#killing stalking #iwrotethis #mine

7 notes · View notes