#I'll straight up die

[egophiliac]

do you have youtube channel?

technically yes, but I just use it to host unlisted videos for embedding, so there's nothing, like, public on it. :') sorry! I basically don't post anywhere except here and occasionally on pixiv (in case it's not obvious, I suck at social media).

[jenny-ate-ink]

CW: Sonic Movie 3/Sonic 2024 spoilers

Click away and block the "#sonic movie 3 spoilers" "#sonic movie spoilers" "#sonic 2024 spoilers" and/or "#sonic spoilers" tags if you do not wish to be spoiled

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Imagine you wake up on a strange new planet, so green, with not a memory of who or what you are. You wake up surrounded by these beings who look nothing like you, and they take you quickly into a metal facility where wires and clips are put on you. Where test after test is run.

They find a power within you. A power they want to channel, to harvest. You make them their power.

But none of them look at you kindly. There is weariness in their eyes. A hesitation in every touch. You are alone. You do not know what you are. Who you are. You have no family. You have no friends.

Then she appears like starlight during a cloudy night. A girl, blond and blue with roller skates. She touches the canister in which you have been placed, and you scowl at her before she scowl at you because everyone scowls at you. Why bother with a smile.

But she mocks you instead with so much humor in her eyes.

It goes all so fast after that. Too fast. You forever look back, wanting, longing. It isn't fair.

She looked at you kindly. She called you her friend. Through her, her grandfather came to like you too.

You would pull her on her skates down the halls and listen to her laugh. You would listen to and sing songs with her. You used to watch movies with her. Shared a pillow fort with her. You once even snuck out to see that green world you landed on again, to stare at the moon and the stars you came from with her. She talked about stars and light lingering on. You looked at her and saw one. Saw your star. Your sun. Your light.

You were happy.

It didn't last. Of course it didn't last. What did you expect? What else did you deserve?

They came for you. For your power. Her grandfather pulled both of you along, running, alarms blaring. She looked so scared.

A gun aimed.

"They're children!"

A gun shoved, a bullet redirected.

An explosion.

You remember it, even now, like it just happened. You relive it every time you close your eyes.

She lies too still on the ground, surrounded by rubble. Broken and burned. You hesitate to touch her, to confirm that this is real. You look up to meet her grandfather's teary eyes. She's gone. Your star is dead.

Your name makes sense now. It suits you well. For you may not have been the one to pull the trigger, but it still was your power that caused the explosion. It was your power that lured them in, your power that killed your star and now leaves the world in shadowed in grief.

You're nothing but a shadow. The darkness in the night. The monster under the bed. Your power killed her, which means you killed her, however indirectly.

She said you aren't a monster and you proved her wrong.

You didn't even fight as they ripped you away from her still warm body. You didn't do anything. You couldn't do anything. You just stared at your hands as they took you away and put you to sleep.

For fifty years you relive it. Over and over again. They made a hell just for you.

They took her from you. Your power, harvested and explosively unleashed, killed her.

You are angry. So angry. It consumes you. It festers like an infection, spreading. It fills you down to the marrows of your bones and pumps through you like blood.

You wake up in a world without her. In a world you don't want to exist. In a world you don't want to exist in.

You go to the only place you think of. The old facility. The only place you ever lived in. The place where she died, where your powers snuffed her out.

You find her grandfather there. He speaks of grief. Of anger. He wants revenge, has a plan of how to get it all laid out, and you are the key to its success.

The world that stole her will burn like she did. Your powers will be harnessed and then explosively unleashed. It will kill you, he tells you. It will kill him. A small price to pay.

It's justice that you die by your own powers, by the same powers that stole her away.

You agree. You want revenge. You want it more than anything. And it the end, you'll be with her again. It's perfect. You want this darken world to feel the same pain it has caused you. You want this pain to end. More than anything, you want to see her again. To feel her light on your fur again.

But a family stands in your way. Something red, something yellow, but mostly something blue. How annoying. How infuriating. They have what you lost, and you want to take it from them. It isn't fair.

You see him. Commander Walters. He was there, he was with them the day she died.

Rage. Deep, sickening rage. You strike him down.

Except... he isn't Walters.

Blue. Eyes carrying the same pain you do glare into your soul.

"What did you do?"

You tell him the truth.

"What I had to."

Revenge awaits.

Is this the right thing to do? Is this what she would've wanted?

No. No. They deserve for taking her. This is revenge. This is what you want... right?

You're so angry. Of course it's what you want. It's what you need.

You power the machine. Let it harvest your power.

You're aren't surprised when blue turned yellow, stronger than ever, comes for you. Of course he would want revenge, too. He is the same as you. He understands your pain. The pain you caused him.

He pins you down. You let him. The world will burn regardless, at least now, you will see her sooner. You can be rid of this pain sooner. You can let him get rid of his pain. You owe him this, don't you? This a mercy upon the both of you.

He hesitates. It angers you. You point to your chest.

"Do it! I'm right here!"

The look in his eyes changes. You no longer see your pain and your rage reflected back at you.

He tells you that revenge doesn't fix anything.

Something shaky within you breaks. You fizzle out. Your anger fizzles out. You realize anger had only ever been the secondary emotion. The mask.

You are consumed with grief. Painful, inescapable grief.

You sit with him and look at the world your powers are going to destroy.

It's blue, like she was. Blue, like he is.

He tells you the pain never goes away, but you learn to grow love around it.

The sun, yellow like her hair, warm as her smile, rises.

It clicks.

You remember it, what she told you all those years ago. How the light still lingers even when the star is gone.

She was, is, your star, and through you her light travels forward even now in her absence.

You are the shadow casted by her lingering light. You are her love preserving. Everything she is, everything she was, you decide now with every action. You are her legacy. Her light still shining.

You were, you are, her shadow. You were always meant to follow her, even now.

You let your anger and grief lead you astray. You should have followed her love from the beginning.

She wouldn't want this.

You wish you could tell her that you're sorry, for everything.

You look at the blue, and he offers his hand.

You take it.

It's time to right your wrongs. To follow the path you were always meant to.

You aren't happy. You're still hurt. And you're still angry, still grieving.

But this feels right.

Even as you redirect the bullet of your power aimed at the Earth, there is a strange peace. A feeling of justice. A knowning that you are doing right by her memory. Acting in her honor rather than your grief.

Blue falters, but you persist. You persevere. You push your mistake further away. You can not, you will not, let your pain hurt anyone else anymore. It isn't what she would've wanted. It isn't what you want. Not anymore.

You can hear her laughter even now. Soft and warm like starlight. You can almost hear her telling you to keep going, to just push it a little further.

Maria.

Is she waiting for you?

Your power engulfs you just like it did to her all those years ago.

Maria.

Is she proud of you?

You close your eyes and welcome it.

Maria.

You'll miss her forever, won't you?

[cryptdfish]

“white mourning.”

[devouringbodies]

Need an au where Will is a waiter at some diner in Louisiana and Hannibal is down there for whatever fucking reason but he stops in everyday cause despite the ....charm of the place not being his usual dining deal it's actually pretty good and the waiter is super cute. Anyways. Hannibal kills all the customers who are rude to Will.

[magistheir]

hi i'm dean and i actually care a lot about the fact that the majority of necromancy has nothing to do with blood magic. most of canon supports this too:

dorian says he does not do blood magic. if necromancy were blood magic, why would he so blatantly lie?

in dai, the spell descriptions for necromancy explicitly state that it uses spirits to manipulate the feelings of others or cause effects (like explosions)

solas and cole both comment that necromancy is the art of manipulating spirits--actually, not even spirits, but fragments of wisps that could become spirits into doing things.

the majority of spells you are doing are actually from the school of entropy or from the spirit school--which is a school separate from that of blood magic. blood magic, as a school of magic, is focused mainly on the direct manipulation of others, first and foremost. the secondary ability is fueling spells.

blood magic might be a powerful way to fuel spells or control others, but it also weakens one's connection to the fade, making it harder to connect to spirits or cast magic in the traditional ways (mana or lyrium). solas cites this as one of his main reasons for not using blood magic in dai

i cannot emphasize this enough, but blood magic always has unintended, unpredictable consequences. the most common forms of this are the weakening of the veil, summoning of demons when that was absolutely not wanted, or possession of the mage casting it. but in the last flight, (spoilers) using blood magic to give the griffons the blight made them stronger and fight harder past the point when they would die, but they also died faster, got too aggressive, and eventually the blight mutated into a disease that infected all the remaining griffons. it also completely fucked up isseya, who got blighted immortality as a result. (end spoiler) with blood magic bringing some unpredictability to it, you wouldn't want to base entire complex systems of magic off of it

the inquisition, a chantry off-shoot organization, would not let the inquisitor learn blood magic and the rest of the world would certainly not be super cool and normal about it

i'll relate this back to dorian then, to make it relevant for my blog specifically.

dorian knows how to use blood magic, and has done it under very specific circumstances--those being a matter of tradition or heritage in specific ceremonies. for example, i count the final conversation by david gaider as among my canon, so the little ceremony dorian does as part of the funerary rites to have a last conversation with the deceased is something he knows and will do--but only with his blood and never another's, and never outside of a specific ceremonial need.

specifically, he looks down on blood mages or anyone who uses blood magic. to him, it is a sign of weak character, weak mind, and little magical talent of their own. his father was the one to instill those morals into him and alexius shared that opinion (which is why their later betrayals actually hurt). for dorian, its' simple: if you don't have the magic to learn spellcraft under your own power, pick up another way of fighting. he might be sympathetic if it was a true last resort to save one's life or that of other's, but you'll lose a lot of respect in his eyes.

[recre8ed]

are you using ai to write?

... no???????? what prompted this????

i'm not sure if this is a genuine question or if you're just saying my writing sounds ai-generated, but i have not and will never use ai in my rp responses. or for any other reason, while we're at it.

[laugtherhyena]

Okay so maybe the wrinkly split head devil isn't the Aging devil itself, since it being called aging definitelly feels like a mistranslation and and public safety wanting to erase old age by sacrificing the younger generation fits the point the chapter is trying to get across much nicer than if the devil was aging itself (+ if you think about it for 2 seconds erasing aging as a whole is a terrible fucking idea since no one will be able to grow anything anymore and people will be stuck as babies and kids forever whereas erasing old age should just make people not age past adulthood and probably cause people who are already elderly to just dissapear on the spot)

But that doesn't mean i'm keeping Cherryboy the exact same because if old age specifically is enough to achieve primal fear level then aging as a whole has gotta be one too. So hooray! someone's getting a slight revamp in the future :)

[space-spring]

One thing that I keep thinking about in regards to Tactics Ogre is the presence of the vaguely humanoid reptilian guys. Like the game has straight-up dragons of varying types, but then you've also got these guys that are just. guys but reptiles. And at first I was going "okay maybe they're just supposed to be mindless monsters like the undead?" but at some point in the game Canopus gets into a fistfight with one of them when he (Canopus) interrupts some singing. So this reptile guy has clearly got the emotional wherewithal to both listen to someone sing and also to get mad when someone interrupts!

The PSP version apparently has a description for the reptiles that mentions they're a "crude race with limited intellect." But are they REALLY limited in intellect or is it just racial prejudice?? You also see them being included in various mercenary bands throughout the game, and they seem to wear human clothing and armor, which implies that at least some of them have some idea of trade and currency, and most of them have the understanding of how to dress for their own protection. For all intents and purposes there is nothing that really stands out as evidence that they're less intelligent than standard humans

[dante-winning-archive]

like vergil-losing, I'm going to be a little quiet for a few days at least. I'm absolutely wrung out from work and I just don't have much energy to be silly on the internet.

[shadystranger]

coming out to say I think the ending was evil as balls and horrible to sam why'd you force him to live intrinsically broken inside and hollow living for the longest soul-decaying while without the person he loves most waking up every day and going goddammit not again while becoming a shell of a human it's almost sadistic why'd you do this to him

[patchwork-crow-writes]

67 - Patience

Thank you for taking your time with me. Thank you for staying. It... means more to me than you can ever know.

W-would you be patient with me a moment longer...? Just while I get my words... my f-feelings in order...? I've been waiting... waiting oh-so-long to tell you... to tell you that I, um...

...a-and you don't need to answer right away! I-in fact, I don't think I'd really mind if you, umm... didn't give one. Just now, I mean. B-but soon, okay? I... don't mind waiting a little longer, haha.

But anyway! I just, umm... I really... l-like you, a lot. N-not in a creepy way or anything! Just, um. A normal way. I... like you, and I like spending time with you, and I would like to spend more time with you. That's... I just wanted you to know. If that's, um, okay.

...it feels pretty good to have finally said it out loud, actually. Even if you're not exactly... well, here. B-but it's okay! Because I can be pretty patient too... and just knowing you'll be back soon is enough for me right now.

...though perhaps it wouldn't be so bad... if I didn't tell you anyway.

______________________________

The Dark Menagerie No. 67

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[governmentmandatedryujinstan420]

i can't believe i come back momentarily from the dead and it's with more cancerous memes. Two versions bc god had other plans, none which included not having both of these.

[ace-does-stuff]

i should learn french

[hibernating-stag]

One question that's still on my mind is if servants are based on the user's soul, why are Raven and Valentines the same?

[anonyanonymouse]

I need a minute. to process the update

[sergeantjessi]

dealing with death/dying is a really strange & fucked up thing huh

:)