#ON THEIR OWN TERMS!! with no outside interference!!

[thriftyshark530]

Whumper needing to get caretaker off their trail, so they hurt whumpee as an example. Maybe caretaker is investigating whumper's crime scenes, too close to making a big score, so whumper needs to set an example. Whumper tracks caretaker from a crime scene to their home, waiting with their henchmen outside for the right moment to strike. When the time comes, caretaker and whumpee are dragged out of their own home. Two henchmen hold down a struggling caretaker, while another holds down whumpee.

"Whumpee, it's going to be ok, I promise" caretaker desperately calls out to whumpee. Whumpee nods as whumper walks between them.

"Oh, we'll just have to see about that." Whumper scoffs, kneeling in front of caretaker, hooking a finger under their chin. "You have been a naughty little shit, haven't you? Busting my operations left and right, profits going down, trying to find my hideout. No no no, we can't have anymore of that, can we?".

"Please..." Caretaker squeaks out, their lip quivering as they struggle to hold back their tears. "You don't have to do this".

Whumper begins to chuckle, releasing their hold on caretaker's chin as they stand up and begin to approach whumpee.

"You know, they all say that. You don't have to do this" whumper laughs as they motion for henchmen to release whumpee. "WHICH IS WHAT MAKES IT SO MUCH MORE FUN" whumper roars as they slam a kick into whumpee's rib cage.

"STOP" Caretaker cries out, beginning to struggle against whumpers henchmen. Whumpee starts violently coughing as they cover up their body, waiting for more blows.

Whumper begins stomping down on whumpee, breaking ribs and crushing whumpee's hands under their boot, enjoying the sight of the broken whumpee before them. Whumper's henchmen forcing caretaker to watch every blow that whumpee takes. Whumper then drops to their knees over whumpee, moving whumpee's arms, revealing whumpee's bruised face.

"Aw, look at you, already such a mess, aren't you?" Whumper whispers, raising their fist and slamming it into whumpees face, repeating over and over. Whumper ignores caretakers pleads to stop as they keep pounding into whumpee's face. Whumper only stops when their hand is covered in whumpee's blood.

"well, I got a bit too excited there" whumper exclaims before standing up, rolling the unconscious whumpee to their side to face caretaker. Caretaker gasps at the sight of whumpee, not able to hold back their tears anymore as they begin calling whumpee's name.

"So much more beautiful now, wouldn't you agree, caretaker?" Whumper says with a devilish grin as they close the gap to caretaker. Forcefully grabbing some of caretakers hair and making them look up. "This is what happens when you fuck with me" whumper growls. "You'll leave this all in the past, and never interfere with my business again, do you understand?"

Caretaker nods, desperately agreeing to whumper's terms.

"Great, so glad we have an understanding. Well, we're off, hope we get to do this again sometime, right caretaker?"

Whumper motions for henchmen to let go of caretaker. Before whumper and their men get far, caretaker is already over whumpee. Peeling their broken body off the ground, sobbing into whumpee's neck as they hold them tightly.

Bonus points if caretaker does give up the case. And after whumpee recovers, they try to convince caretaker to take down whumper. Caretaker refusing, not wanting whumpee to get hurt again, but whumpee is adamant that caretaker continues their work.

[lotuslate]

a little comic about post canon wangxian and coming to terms with some things!

[prokopetz]

On the one hand, it's true that the way Dungeons & Dragons defines terms like "sorcerer" and "warlock" and "wizard" is really only relevant to Dungeons & Dragons and its associated media – indeed, how these terms are used isn't even consistent between editions of D&D! – and trying to apply them in other contexts is rarely productive.

On the other hand, it's not true that these sorts of fine-grained taxonomies of types of magic are strictly a D&D-ism and never occur elsewhere. That folks make this argument is typically a symptom of being unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons' source material. D&D's main inspirations are American literary sword and sorcery fantasy spanning roughly the 1930s through the early 1980s, and fine-grained taxonomies of magic users absolutely do appear in these sources; they just aren't anything like as consistent as the folks who try to cram everything into the sorcerer/warlock/wizard model would prefer.

For example, in Lyndon Hardy's "Five Magics" series, the five types of magical practitioners are:

Alchemists: Drawing forth the hidden virtues of common materials to craft magic potions; limited by the fact that the outcomes of their formulas are partially random.

Magicians: Crafting enchanted items through complex manufacturing procedures; limited by the fact that each step in the procedure must be performed perfectly with no margin for error.

Sorcerers: Speaking verbal formulas to basically hack other people's minds, permitting illusion-craft and mind control; limited by the fact that the exercise of their art eventually kills them.

Thaumaturges: Shaping matter by manipulating miniature models; limited by the need to draw on outside sources like fires or flywheels to make up the resulting kinetic energy deficit.

Wizards: Summoning and binding demons from other dimensions; limited by the fact that the binding ritual exposes them to mental domination by the summoned demon if their will is weak.

"Warlock", meanwhile, isn't a type of practitioner, but does appear as pejorative term for a wizard who's lost a contest of wills with one of their own summoned demons.

Conversely, Lawrence Watt-Evans' "Legends of Ethshar" series includes such types of magic-users as:

Sorcerers: Channelling power through metal talismans to produce fixed effects; in the time of the novels, talisman-craft is largely a lost art, and most sorcerers use found or inherited talismans.

Theurges: Summoning gods; the setting's gods have no interest in human worship, but are bound not to interfere in the mortal world unless summoned, and are thus amenable to cutting deals.

Warlocks: Wielding X-Men style psychokinesis by virtue of their attunement to the telepathic whispers emanating from the wreckage of a crashed alien starship. (They're the edgy ones!)

Witches: Producing improvisational effects mostly related to healing, telepathy, precognition, and minor telekinesis by drawing on their own internal energy.

Wizards: Drawing down the infinite power of Chaos and shaping it with complex rituals. Basically D&D wizards, albeit with a much greater propensity for exploding.

You'll note that both taxonomies include something called a "sorcerer", something called a "warlock", and something called a "wizard", but what those terms mean in their respective contexts agrees neither with the Dungeons & Dragons definitions, nor with each other.

(Admittedly, these examples are from the 1980s, and are thus not free of D&D's influence; I picked them because they both happened to use all three of the terms in question in ways that are at odds with how D&D uses them. You can find similar taxonomies of magic use in earlier works, but I would have had to use many more examples to offer multiple competing definitions of each of "sorcerer", "warlock" and "wizard", and this post is already long enough!)

So basically what I'm saying is giving people a hard time about using these terms "wrong" – particularly if your objection is that they're not using them in a way that's congruent with however D&D's flavour of the week uses them – makes you a dick, but simply having this sort of taxonomy has a rich history within the genre. Wizard phylogeny is a time-honoured tradition!

[tarysande]

There are a couple more Garrus-Vakarian-related hills I'm willing to die on.

Maybe this particular bit of fanon has faded over the years, but there used to be a lot of insistence that Garrus is young and somehow inexperienced when he meets Shepard. Canon doesn't really support this. Turians start their mandatory service at 15. Garrus has at least a decade of experience. Even if he's 2-4 of years younger than Shepard (according to Patrick Weekes), he's got at least as much field experience as she does by dint of the difference in turian and human "enlistment" ages.

Garrus is really damn good at his job at C-Sec. You don't give the Case of Investigating the Rogue Spectre to a greenhorn. You give it to your best, most tenacious agent. Pallin may not always approve of Garrus's actions, but that doesn't actually stop him from putting Garrus on the tough case. Also, we don't know much about how C-Sec works but we do know a bit about how the turian hierarchy works, and we know C-Sec was essentially a turian initiative. That means it's a meritocracy where failure reflects on the superior, not the one who failed. So, in roughly a decade (Shepard's 29 in ME1; I always think of Garrus as about 27), Garrus has not only done shipboard military service, but he's also risen to be one of C-Sec's top investigators; Pallin wouldn't risk having Garrus's "failure" reflect poorly on HIM otherwise. I'd say that actually makes Garrus as remarkable in civilian law enforcement terms as Shepard is considered to be within the ranks of the Alliance military.

Of course Garrus was scouted by the Spectre program. And honestly, if his dad hadn't stepped in, I think Garrus would have become a Spectre, no problem. Especially for a turian, he's cut from precisely the cloth the Spectres would be looking for: extremely skilled, extremely capable, and--most importantly--he's a turian not just able but willing to work outside the chains of command that turians are taught from birth to revere and be loyal to above all else. This is the reason Pallin is leery about Spectres: he's a good turian. Good turians follow straight lines; they don't carve out their own paths.

Garrus's dad's not dumb, and he's not cruel, and he, too, rose to the top of the C-Sec hierarchy. He took one look at his kid, I think, and said, "I love my child, but I'd say it's a 50-50 chance he ends up a shooting-first-asking-questions-later Spectre like Saren Arterius, and I don't want to see that happen." Yeah, he uses his parental influence to try and jam square-peg-Garrus into round-hole-C-Sec and Garrus resents him for it, but there's no way he did it just to stop his son from getting his way or because he doesn't like Spectres. I expect Vakarian Sr. had to clean up more post-Spectre-interference messes than we can possibly imagine. But we also know he and Alec Ryder were pals later.

So the importance of what Garrus learns from a Paragon Spectre Shepard is this: You can't just do what you want and claim the ends always justify the means. That's what Saren does. Over and over again. Garrus's code and his idealism and his sense of justice and his ability to work alone should make him a great Spectre, actually, but he needs Paragon Spectre Shepard's actions to show him the lesson he tells her he's learned during ME1: "If the people I'm sworn to protect can't trust me... well, then I don't deserve to be the one protecting them." (And the seed of Archangel was planted.) I think for the first time he realizes that even though he believes his sense of justice to be correct, it doesn't matter for shit if he can't show others why that's so. And that's where the trust comes in. (Also, ow, the extra level of importance this gives their exchange where she tells him she trusts him and he tells her she's about the only friend he has left is... a lot. Cool, cool. I'm totally fine. Nothing to see here.)

When Shepard asks him what happened on Omega, he replies, "My feelings got in the way of my better judgement." Something tells me that this never happens to "good" turians, which just makes the line so much more devastating. And although the lesson some might take away from this is "feelings bad; no feelings ever," the "grey" that Garrus has to learn to deal with is precisely the grey of recognizing feelings, validating them even, but not acting on them until they've been examined. (Which is why my Shepard stands between him and Sidonis; she doesn't give a shit about Sidonis. But Garrus has refused to process his own feelings of failure and self-loathing, so they have to take the therapy session to the Citadel and deal with it there.)

Ahh yes. The mountain range of character analysis.

[hobgoblinns]

regarding the “the doctor is trapped inside a tv show” theory — i can’t stop thinking about the fact that ‘snow’ was a common term for tv static/interference.

snow isn’t just appearing at random for ruby. it occurs when she’s thinking too hard about her own life. when it snows, is someone blocking the signal from reaching the outside world? are producers putting up a “we’ll be right back!” sign to the viewers whenever ruby risks becoming self-aware?

and is that what’s being filmed in this shot from the episode title trailer?

[tavina-writes]

I think the funniest thing about the "is x character a COP" discourse in mdzscql fandom is that by definition, none of the characters can be cops because they're part of the jianghu.

Please behold this definition of the jiangu:

In modern Chinese culture, jianghu is commonly accepted as an alternative universe coexisting with the actual historical one in which the context of the wuxia genre was set. Unlike the normal world, in the jianghu, the youxia (wanderers or knights-errant) are free to act on their own initiative, including with violence, to punish evil and foes, and to reward goodness and allies. While the term literally means "rivers and lakes", it is broader than that: roads, inns, bandit lairs, deserted temples, and the wilderness are all classic places associated with the jianghu, places far from government interference.[1]Vigilantism is normal and accepted in a way that would be impermissible in a more realistic setting.

Emphasis mine.

Besides the entire fact that vigilante justice has nothing to do with governmental policy and is in fact completely outside the typical court of law or government jurisdiction, do we. Do we remember what the definition of a police officer is. If Jared, 19, who is a ghost buster who lives in a big house and is wealthy punches you in a parking lot he's an asshole, not a member of a government funded enforcer of law and order who uses a gun to retrieve 2.5 dollars. Not even if he resurrected your grandma. :(

(The wikipedia article on "jianghu" is a very interesting and informative read actually! Link here.)

[another-lost-mc]

➤ when they find out you have a fwb | the dateables

1.3k words | gn!reader | nsfw | suggestive

c/w: jealousy, pining, masturbation

read more: the demon brothers | when solomon is your fwb

Barbatos first learns about your arrangement from Asmodeus, and he hesitates to inform his young master about it. Perhaps it's not their place to discuss your private life, but he decides that transparency is best. The subject inevitably comes up one morning when Diavolo asks for an update about the exchange program. He's anxious to know how the students are adjusting to life in the Devildom. Admittedly, he's not concerned about Solomon or the angels as much as he is about you. You're an ordinary human with only Lucifer and his siblings to protect you outside of school hours. He remembers how upset you were when you first arrived and he doesn't want resentment to linger.

Diavolo chokes on a mouthful of coffee when Barbatos informs him that you’re in a relationship with one of your classmates. (He uses the term relationship loosely since he's seen no evidence that you spend much time together outside of your physical arrangement.) Diavolo clears his throat and remarks how wonderful it is that you're making friends so quickly. The smile on his face looks forced. He leaves the rest of his breakfast untouched and carries on with his preparations for the day. He feels a burst of happiness when he sees you at RAD, and he ignores the bitter jealousy that burns his throat when he sees your friend. He has no logical reason to interfere, and he knows it's petty when he considers the subtle ways he can try to keep you two apart. It feels like an abuse of his power, but the more he thinks about it, the more justified he feels. He doesn't get much work done because he's so distracted thinking about the best way to approach you about deepening your relationship. You're his guest in the Devildom; if you want to turn to someone for pleasurable company, why not the prince himself?

Barbatos keeps a close eye on you and your friend once he discovers your secret. He tells himself it's because his young master would want him to and not his own jealous curiosity. He has no evidence to suggest the other demon means to harm you or that you're not being treated well. On the contrary, some days your eyes seem just a bit brighter and there's a secretive smile on your face. His keen eye for detail notices that sometimes you walk with the slightest limp in your gait. Your spirit and body are radiant in the aftermath of pleasure and he realizes he wants you for himself. He decides your time is wasted with your current choice of companion. He finds new reasons to seek you out because your friend is reluctant to approach you when the demon lord's butler hovers nearby. He feels a bit smug that your suitor is so easily deterred. See? You can do better than that weak excuse for a demon.

Barbatos eagerly learns more about your favourite foods and drinks, the types of books you like to read and your hobbies. He knows your class schedule and surprises you with mid-morning snacks of freshly-brewed tea and baked treats he makes specially for you. He plans to court you properly, so he can give you everything your other lover didn't; you deserve so much more than rushed fumblings in dark, dusty storage closets.

Solomon was wrong about you. In a world of demons, he believed you would naturally turn to him if you missed parts of your life in the human world. He’s the only other human here, and it seemed logical that you would lean on him for support or comfort. He remembers the first day he met you; if he could sense your fear, he knew the demons could too. That’s why he’s genuinely shocked to learn that not only are you and the demon brothers actually getting along, but that you’ve started fucking one of your classmates too. Asmo giggles at Solomon’s slack-jawed expression when he tells him.

It’s only a few days later when he happens to spot you coming out of a dark utility closet in your slightly-wrinkled uniform. He plasters a wide grin on his face and pretends not to notice. He offers to walk you to the cafeteria for lunch as a chance for you two to catch up. He sniffs the air discreetly while you chatter on about something funny the brothers did that morning. He's too distracted to pay attention to what you're saying, though. Underneath the whiff of hastily-reapplied fragrance, he detects salty sweat, musk and a hint of cologne he knows you don’t wear. He wonders what other traces your friend left behind. Did he suck bruises into your skin where the collar of your shirt covers them? Are you sticky from demon cum that dripped down your thighs? It bothers him more than it should that some random demon gets to touch you like this. He can’t stop thinking about it. After trying and failing to sleep that night, he jerks off while he fantasizes about what it might be like to pull you into an empty classroom and hear your voice beg him to fuck you. You're already friends, and he can offer you secrecy or discretion if that's your preference. All he needs to do is think of how to persuade you to let him be your dirty little secret instead. If you give him a chance, he promises you won't regret it.

The first time Simeon sees you with your fling, he's leaning close and whatever he whispers in your ear makes you smile. You bite your lip and nod, and Simeon's perplexed because he's never seen you act this way with someone before. Oh, he's just a friend. The second time Simeon sees you with your fling, he's leading you by the hand into one of the club offices after school. It's a stroke of bad luck, really. He forgot his textbook in one of the classrooms, but he pauses outside the door you disappeared through. He might be an angel, but he's not innocent. He knows exactly what you and your friend are getting up to. It makes his throat dry and he feels hot all of a sudden, and he spends the rest of the night trying to concentrate on his homework instead of the soft, muffled noises he heard through that door. The next day is even worse. There's a noticeable spring in your step and if he leans over you at just the right angle, the small purplish mark barely hidden by your shirt collar reminds him all over again how you got it in the first place.

He didn't think you'd seek out the company of demons that way, especially not with some random classmate you barely spend time with outside of your little dalliances. He understands that humans are lustful and impulsive creatures. Are you so desperate that you would turn to a stranger to satisfy your physical needs? He's not sure why he cares so much. Maybe it's because you're a kind, bright soul in this strange kingdom of endless night. Maybe it's because you stir things in him that he tries to ignore: longing for companionship, desire for a loving hand to touch him instead of his own. Jealousy makes his tone sharp and his heart ache. He goes to bed imagining what taking you out on a date might be like, and he wakes up hard with his hand around his cock as memories of your sweet, pleasured sounds echo in his mind. He can't remember the last time he was so easily led astray by temptation. He wonders if you're more demon than human because he's powerless to resist you.

[hana-no-seiiki]

☁️ . . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋ FIVE STAGES OF YANDERE ࿐: HERO

“𝐘𝐎𝐔’𝐋𝐋 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐎 𝐀𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒, 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐈 𝐃𝐈𝐃.”

⟣┄─ ˑ 𝐈. ✧ yandere/tsundere! modern hero x villain! reader

✧ status: unedited

✧ tw/cw: yandere themes, violence, morally dubious reader, horny hero, tsundere hero.

✧ a/n: both character’s genders are up to your imagination. also i’m making this my permanent theme now for general yans fics (consistency/recognizabilty’s sake)

[series masterlist]

⟣┄─ ˑ STAGE ONE. ✧ DENIAL

“You’re getting a bit sloppy aren’t you, lil hero?”

“Shut up, wretched being! C-Come back here!”

You and Yandere! Hero have been nemeses for what felt like lifetimes. Ever since you became a sidekick as a kid, up until the present time as adults.

You saw them as a sibling. You’d fight once in a while but neither truly hurt each other. In fact, you never once attempted to kill them, and they in turn never attempted to put you behind bars. The cycle always repeated.

You were relatively close in terms of power. More times than not, things would end up being a tie where the two of you would be too tired to continue. But recently your cutie patootie hero has been getting sluggish. Their attacks lacked any sort of vigour, and their reflexes dulled.

You would offer to talk and assist them, but another one of your hidden rules in this relationship of sorts was that you two would never interfere with life outside of crime and fighting thereof.

Unbeknownst to you, Yandere! Hero fought another villain (cheater!) whose powers were related to nightmares and fears.

Their greatest nightmare . . . was losing their status as a hero — losing you.

You have been such a huge part of their formative years and beyond that the thought of even retiring and losing contact scared the hell out of them. The idea of never being able to banter as you sparred, the concept of losing sight of that smug grin of yours on the times you won, and the very notion of you being dealt with by someone else — their chest would tighten to the point of being unable to breathe.

But they always shook their head, drowned themself in tasks as to avoid the anxiety that threatened their focus. After all, you were a villain. A monstrous creature that have hurt and killed people. The only reason they haven’t taken you down yet was because they were instructed by their predecessor not to.

Yeah, the fear of losing you? Probably just an extension of their desperate and zealous view on their position as a hero

They prayed it was.

⟣┄─ ˑ STAGE TWO. ✧ ANGER

“I told you that they were mine to take care of! You gave me this duty!”

“You and I both know you’ve been losing your fights more often than not. Look at how many people they’ve started to hurt again! I can’t leave you with a responsibility you, can’t, handle.”

Yandere! Hero couldn’t believe their ears. Everything they feared was starting to come true and it was only getting worse.

They started disobeying their mentor/predecessor’s commands. Commands that they used to referees — worship even. They knew they were making things go from trash to absolute shit, but they couldn’t care less anymore.

So what if you hurt those people? From what they understood, those people were a bunch of assholes at best; Crime-lords, all types of traffickers, and violent thugs. In fact, the very reason you aren’t in cuffs was because you often took justice into your own hands. You were just quite cruel and brutal when it came down to it.

One of their more unforgettable moments of you together was the time you saved them from another villain. You in your blood-soaked glory as you grinned, an attempt to comfort them while they neck-deep in voices that screamed failure. They were barely hurt while you could barely stand, yet you were the one hushing them as you rubbed circles on the small of their back. Shared whispers they’ll die before they talk of it to anyone else.

Yandere! Hero keeps meeting you again and again. Doing duties they were already forbidden from completing and abusing the favor of being a sidekick for so long.

Things get from worse to oblivion when they get news of being replaced.

⟣┄─ ˑ STAGE THREE. ✧ BARGAINING

“At least let me accompany them on patrols! What if they get hurt?”

“You worked alone just fine.”

“That is an entirely different story!”

This newbie didn’t know you for several years. This newbie never experienced fighting you much less alongside you. You would eat them alive.

Granted, it would be the newbie’s fault for being so incompetent but they digress.

While on patrol with the newbie, they do their best to sabotage them in every way they can. Giving them the wrong intel, alerting the enemy of their arrival if they do figure out the proper location, and above all making sure you two never cross paths at all. A peer of theirs hurting you would kill them.

Of course, with their frantic and frankly stressed out mind, it wasn’t long before you and the newbie encounter one another.

And, the two of you got along quite well. Your moves like a beautifully choreographed routine in the battlefield. More importantly, it looked as if you were having so much fun.

They really couldn’t help themself

When they stepped in and interrupted the two of you

A glaze in their eyes as they walked ever so slowly to the newbie and strangled them.

That horrified look on your face. They didn’t know if they liked it or hated it.

But what they did know is that from that moment forward, they can never call themself a proper hero again. Their mentor’s words echoed in their head.

“You are staying at the base and that is final. If I see you again out on the field, I’ll be the one to put you behind bars.”

⟣┄─ ˑ STAGE FOUR. ✧ DEPRESSION

“Breaking News: A new vigilante has been spotted! Has our favorite hero been replaced? Well our sources say yes!”

“And would you look at that, they’re even worse at hiding their interest in their nemesis! Is this the love story we’ve all been waiting for?”

Yandere! Hero doesn’t remember when they last saw the sun anymore.

Their days were spent deep within the basement of the hero HQ, scrolling through any information they could find of you.

Their head constantly replaying the memories you shared, written in a systematic obsessed manner on a journal. From the very second you two first met, to the time you looked at them with eyes full of horror.

Your image had been scribbled, drawn, painted, carved, broken down, and built back up again hundreds of times.

But it just wasn’t enough.

Yandere! Hero used to wish that there would be a day you two would stop fighting. Whether it’d be them finally ending your streak of misdeeds, or you quitting. Anything would have satisfied them.

But now, now they just couldn’t see the appeal of it all.

All they could see was eternity with you.

And they’ll have that one way or another.

⟣┄─ ˑ STAGE FIVE. ✧ ACCEPTANCE

“I never could have imagine this to happen.”

“Really? You must have thought that I’d put you behind bars one day.”

“My fantasies were always, well — the other way around.”

You wore a calm expression.

Yandere! Hero, ever the fragile ego they had, would have seen this as an insult. A slight to their prowess.

But right now they couldn’t help but sigh in relief. Of course you wouldn’t be mad if they did this. You were you after all. You’ve been through much worse than being tied up and forced into a small cage more fit for an animal than a human.

And you being you, knew the many other ways to unnerve your poor rival.

“Wouldn’t it be ironic? If your replacement were to save me that is.”

You fought the anticipation from appearing on your face as you continued.

“Then they would truly become my hero.”

But your hopes were dashed, your giddiness dimmed as they simply replied.

“Then I’ll just kill them, and the next replacement after that. Until I go through every single capable human this planet has to offer and then more.”

Perhaps there was a reason why Heroes wore a mask aside from hiding their identities. That would certainly explain the chill you felt crawl up your limbs and spine as they lovingly stared at you.

“Because now I know that I love you. I’ll save you from everyone else but myself.”

©️ hana.no.seiiki - yun | 2023

[imagine-darksiders]

I’m having a really hard time right now. I just found out that my boyfriend of 2.5 years has been cheating on my physically and emotionally. Can I please request something fluffy and comforting of the horsemen reacting to finding out this news or just something fluffy with death? If not no worries, I hope you have a lovely day.

Oh my god that's awful! What a horrible, horrible thing for someone to do to you. I'm so sorry, I've channelled a bit of my own indignation into Death, War and Strife in these responses. I hope they bring you at least a little bit of comfort while you're going through so much. <3

Death:

This is… definitely going to be a problem for you.

Death never liked that sorry excuse for a human anyway… Never liked the way their eyes wandered in a crowd, even when they had your hand clasped possessively in theirs. The eldest Nephilim is an observer first, choosing to watch and wait for information to reveal itself, and after just a few days of watching you and your life-partner interact, he can already tell that there’s immeasurable love on your part, but very little on theirs.

Not that Death is any kind of expert, but he’s fairly certain love doesn’t involve draping oneself over another human while you’re still very much in the vicinity, a human who keeps shooting you quick, spiteful glances and grinning as they cling to your partner and bury their nose in their hair.

From his spot in the shadows, Death would watch your happiness wane, then vanish entirely. You’d turn away, and the Horseman had a sneaking suspicion that you were trying to convince yourself you were just being paranoid.

He had to stand there and listen, fingernails digging crescents into his palms as you quietly asked your partner about it later, politely mentioning how you weren’t sure it was appropriate for them to be all over each other like they often are. The subtle flirts that could easily be misconstrued as friendliness, the lingering touches on each other’s arms, the secretive rendezvous they’d tell you nothing about… You’d noticed it all.

Of course you did. They had the gall to be obvious about it. Death noticed too, and it was only because you told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to interfere in your love life that he didn’t pluck the little wretchs' souls from their bodies right then and there.

You were in love. You wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the old Horseman wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand by and watch you be treated with so much cruelty.

Your partner’s response to your observations?

‘You’ve been spending too much time around that Horseman. He’s making you paranoid. Are you looking for an excuse to leave me? I bet he wants that, doesn’t he!? Are you two fucking? Is that where this is coming from? Guilty conscience much!?”

If you hadn’t asked Death to take you somewhere outside the city at that very moment, he couldn’t have promised your house would be blood-free by the time it took your partner to finish speaking.

Since then, things have only been escalating. You found out your partner had their ‘friend’ over to stay the night while you visited the Forge Lands. You'd even asked them to join you on the trip, citing that the makers were dying to meet the lover of their favourite human, but of course, they'd brushed off your invitation as if it were an insult.

They’d neglected to tell you of their own plans, of course, and you’d only found out when you came home, crawled into bed with your partner and discovered a pair of shorts under the sheets. A pair that didn’t belong to anyone in your household…

Nothing came of it right away, save for you withdrawing completely, even from Death.

He was just about to stage an intervention when it happened.

It was, of all people, Vulgrim who alerted him. ‘That human of yours didn’t look well,’ he remarked casually when Death passed one of his Serpent Holes near the old Maker Tree, ‘Did you do something? I’m fairly sure they slept all night on that bench…’

It was all Death needed to hear.

Despair careens to a halt outside your door, his hooves kicking up sparks as they skid across the tarmac. Death has already leapt from the saddle by the time the horse stops, and wastes no time storming up the steps towards your front door, only to be given pause when Despair lets out a haunting whinny, drawing his rider to a standstill.

Twisting his mask around, Death squints over his shoulder and finds the steed’s big, skeletal head has pivoted to the right, ears pricked towards a streetlight that keeps its lonely vigil on the path opposite your home.

There, laying on a bench underneath its buzzing glow, Death spots a small figure trying to huddle into their coat for warmth.

Spitting out a curse, the Horseman turns and marches straight for the bench.

You’re startled by an ice-cold hand grabbing you roughly by the shoulder and hauling you over onto your back. Blinking back tears, the blurry image above you focuses until you find yourself peering straight up at the last person you wanted to see tonight. Well… Second to last.

A baltic chill rolls off the Horseman in waves as he glares down at you. “What are you doing out here?” he hisses, beating back the relief that threatens to dribble into his voice, “This is no place for a nap!”

Despite his gruff tone, he’s gentle when he pulls you into an upright position, kneeling down in front of the bench to bring himself to your level.

For several moments, you merely sit there and watch him check you over for injuries, your face a picture of bleakness, damp and sticky with tears. “I found their texts,” is all you offer him in the end.

Death goes very still then, darting his gaze to your face as a low hum starts up in the depths of his chest.

“They’ve been lying to me, Death… This whole time…” Crumpling forwards, you bury your face in your palms, shoulders heaving, “I …. I’m such an idiot! I knew! I knew, I just didn’t want to believe it!”

Almost at once, Death scowls, reaching forwards to slip strong, chilly fingers around your wrists and tug them away from your face. “You are many things,” he tells you sternly, “Hopeful, yes. Optimistic? Certainly. But an idiot? Never. There’s nothing foolish about expecting better from people you trusted.”

“I can’t believe it took me this long to-…” Sniffling, you let your arms go floppy in the Horseman’s grasp, shaking your head. “They’ve been going behind my back for months… They’ve been sending messages to each other… They said they can’t believe I still haven’t figured it out.”

“Do they know you’ve figured it out now?” he presses. If they haven’t yet, they soon will after a livid Reaper comes flying through the front door wielding a scythe…

Giving him a tiny nod, you whisper, “Yeah. Yeah, they know… Kicked me out… Told me they wouldn’t have had to cheat if I wasn’t being so suspicious and clingy…”

If he hadn’t spent so many eons practicing self-control, Death is sure the whole block would be levelled by now, with only you and the Horseman left standing. As it is, he isn’t the young, volatile force he used to be. He is, however, struggling to maintain that carefully concealed composure, for your sake. He knows it’ll only dampen your already dour mood if he were to start collecting souls…

Instead, he closes his eyes and focuses on the warmth of your wrists under his palms. Peeling his eyelids apart again, his gaze bathes you in a warmth of his own, the only kind he can give. Golden, ethereal light spills from his eyes and softly illuminates the tears on your cheeks.

“They… ‘kicked you out?” he puts tentatively, aware of the rough growl tinging his voice, “Of your own home?”

“…Technically it’s their home too.”

At that, the Horseman suddenly scoffs, sharp and cold. “Hardly,” he bites out, “You found it first. You had me check it for demon stragglers. Thane and Valus came and made sure it was structurally sound before you moved in! Your partner wasn’t around for that.”

With a grunt, he heaves himself to his feet, ebony hair swaying in front of his mask as he turns to stalk back across the street in the direction of your door.

In a flurry of limbs, you struggle off the bench, calling after him, “Death! Wait!”

He doesn’t, marching straight up the steps and curling his fist around the handle of your door.

“Oh god, what’re you doing? Stop!”

The Horseman’s shoulders rise and fall with a sardonic chuckle, and to your astonishment, he actually does stop, right on the top step, arm braced to rip your front door off its hinges. “What does it look like I’m doing?” he poses, “I’m taking you home.”

“I’m not-!” Shaky hands rake through your hair. “I don’t want to be in the same house as them right now, okay?”

“Oh, you won’t be,” he replies simply, a dark edge lacing the bass of his voice, “Not for long…”

And before you can stop him, before you can say another word to deter your apocalyptic friend from doing… whatever it is he plans to do, Death squeezes the door handle and wrenches the whole thing out of its frame, dropping it to the ground and sending splintered wood scattering across the steps.

You can’t bring yourself to go inside after him.

Like a wraith, the Horseman disappears into the darkness of your hallway, flitting through the house whilst you hover nervously at the bottom of your porch steps, heart in your throat and your elbows clutched tightly in sweaty palms.

It isn’t long before you hear a familiar voice exclaim, ‘What the Hell!?’ though it’s soon drowned out completely by a low, threatening rumble that sounds more like an earthquake than a Horseman’s vocalisation. The whole house even seems to shiver as the noise rolls through it, rattling the shingles and causing the windowpanes to wobble in their frames.

Your stomach drops like a stone when a shadowy figure emerges from the doorway moments later, holding another, far noisier shape aloft by the front of their hoodie.

“Death!” you blurt in shock, gawping up at your partner as they flail and beat their fists uselessly against the Horseman’s fist keeping them airborne, “Oh my god! Put them down!”

“In a moment,” he snarls, hauling your fellow human down the steps and out onto the street. For a brief moment, their eyes connect with yours, and you’re hardly surprised to see their pupils have shrunk to the size of pinpricks, delirious with terror.

“C-call him off!” they bark, earning a rough jostle from their tormentor, “What the fuck did you tell him!? Make this asshole put me d-ack!”

Letting out an inhuman growl, Death jerks to a halt and hoists your ex-partner higher into the air above his head. His arm doesn’t even quiver from the strain of keeping an entire human aloft.

Slowly, dangerously, he lowers your ex down towards his mask, fist twisted into the hoodie’s fabric with a silent promise to do the same to their neck. “You have no idea what you’ve brought upon yourself,” the Horseman seethes, “You will leave this place. You will leave this city. You will never return here unless you’re prepared to face the consequences.”

“What!?” they choke, giving up on hitting his impervious arm and instead trying to pry his fingers out of their hoodie, “Y-you can’t kick me out of Haven! Who the Hell do you think you are!?”

Hackles raised, Death keeps his head tilted back to glare up at them with wide, piercing eyes. “Who am I? Do you really need a reminder?” he laughs but it’s an ugly sound, dark and filled with the promise of pain, “Perhaps I should tell you exactly how and when you’re going to die, see if that jogs your memory.”

You can only watch on as your partner goes several shades paler than normal, shaking their head and begging Death not to tell them.

Cocking his head to one side, Death just shrugs a massive shoulder and says, “Suit yourself.” And with that, he promptly drops your ex on the road with a sickening ‘thud,’ turning his back on them as they writhe about, clutching at their coccyx and wailing in agony. It was quite the tumble.

As he passes you, Death catches your elbow in his palm, pulling you gently away from the human in the road. “Come on. Inside, now…Before you catch a chill.” Sparing a brief glance at the broken door as he guides you inside, he adds, “I’ll get that fixed…”

The night is still in its early hours, but you hardly feel like you’ll be getting much sleep. So, it’s with a heavy heart that you drag yourself into your bedroom, watched all the way by your ever-vigilant companion.

By his very nature, Death isn’t a comforting Nephilim. He’s grateful you don’t ask anything more than for his presence. You don’t expect him to hold you and stroke your hair while you cry against his chest, nor do you ask him to fill your head with pretty words about how you deserve so much better than your ex.

You don’t need to ask him for that. He does it of his own volition.

Instead, you’re content to sit on your bed with the ancient Horseman occupying the space beside you, an ever-constant presence, watchful and protective.

And if, after crying all of your tears out into the quiet night, you slouch sideways against Death and end up with your cheek pressed into his cool, bulbous shoulder, well… he’s not complaining.

War:

War was riding towards your home when he spots you stumbling in the opposite direction down the dark, empty street with a hand clutched around your mouth and your shoulders jumping with harsh, rapid intakes of breath. He’d been on his way to conduct another ‘welfare check,’ as you’ve recently taken to calling them, where he drops into your home just to make sure you’re safe.

So, to see you staggering outside without any visible protection has him spurring Ruin into a loping canter to pull up alongside you. Swinging a leg from his saddle, War drops heavily to the ground beside you with an almighty clang of steel, causing you to jump a foot in the air, as if you hadn’t even noticed him coming.

You really must be out of it to miss the largest Horseman’s approach.

What are you doing out in the city at night? He’s told you until he’s blue in the face how dangerous it still is for humans to wander around alone in the darkness, where demons could be lurking around every corner, sympathisers of the Destroyer or enemies of the Horsemen.

When you whirl around towards him, throwing your hands away from your mouth in shock, he catches his first glimpse of your face.

All at once, the titanic Nephilim goes from disgruntled to downright frenzied.

You’re crying. You’re alone, in the dark, with tears cascading down your ruddy cheeks, and he doesn’t know why.

His famously short fuse bursts into flames, whittling down to an explosion you can see coming from a mile off. Apoplectic with outrage, War surges forwards, crowding you against the faded brick of an old, tumbledown building as he darts his icy glare over you from head to toe.

You must be hurt, he concludes. Once he’s brought you safely into your home, he’s going hunting…

A wall of warm, unassailable muscle keeps you pinned as the Horseman surrounds you with his huge, encompassing gauntlets, their metal fingers splayed just inches above your arms with barely contained agitation. His anger only grows tenfold when you start to cry even harder, turning your face to try and hide from him.

“Who did this?” he rumbles, his voice rolling through you like distant thunder, warning of the storm to come.

“N-Nobody!” you blurt out in a sob.

The Horseman’s jaw clenches shut, canines poking out through a gap in his curling lips.

You know how much he hates being lied to.

Your eyes squeeze shut as you hang your head, lips pursed to hold back another miserable whimper. Under War’s attentive stare, you finally admit that your partner, the person you thought you’d spent the rest of your life with, has been cheating on you.

After an awkward moment spent explaining that cheating means seeking the affections of another behind your back, War’s lips peel back into a ferocious snarl, and the heat he exudes climbs higher and higher until it feels as though you’re standing in front of a burning furnace. Shyly, you tell him that you’d come home to find a stranger in bed with your partner, and you’d simply turned around and fumbled your way out of the house again, though not before taking an axe from the basement and destroying the fridge you’d just fixed, the television you’d scrounged up from a junkyard of course, the front door.

You were always busy in that house with a hammer and nails, fixing what the Apocalypse had broken. They were… good at telling you what needed to be fixed. Now, they can do it themselves. Ought to teach them some goddamn self-sufficiency now that you’re gone.

After willing his Chaos form not to burst out through his skin at the injustice of it all, with wild-eyes, War twists his hood in the direction of your old home, shoulders rising like the hackles of a beast.

He cannot allow this… this disrespect to go unpunished. The coward who did this will pay for his transgression. War’s scowl darkens. Behind him, Ruin throws his head back and bellows out a guttural whinny, pawing a molten hoof at the road until the tarmac starts to turn soft from the heat.

“War?”

Small, quiet, a far cry from the human he knows so well, you sound wounded though he can’t see any blood. You always told him the people who love you are supposed to protect you, to keep you safe and try to make you happy…

It had brought into question his own feelings on more than one occasion…

War knows how much you love the human you called your partner. He’s seen you sacrifice much for their happiness, not least agreeing to limit your exposure to the Horsemen solely because the Four made them so anxious. In War’s eyes, your loyalty to them was always admirable, even if it came at the cost of your closeness to he and his siblings, but now your partner has betrayed you in a way that’s cut you down to your core, spilling sadness out like a severed limb haemorrhages blood.

First thing’s first though… He has to get you somewhere safe. He knows without asking that you won’t be going back to your home… He’ll have to return in the near future to gather some of your belongings, but for now… Well, he’s been looking for an excuse to move you somewhere more secure. Somewhere off-world, perhaps. Like a fortress that he’s been fitting out to suit a very specific, very human set of needs…

Strife:

When he invites himself into your home in the typical, jocular fashion, only to find that you’ve locked yourself in your bedroom, sobbing under the covers, Strife’s first thought is ‘point me at the idiot I’m gonna murder.’

You don’t tell him what happened, not even when he wrenches your door off its hinges and throws it into the adjoining hallway before hauling his armour through the narrow frame to get to you. You know for a fact that he isn’t bluffing when he snarls, “I’ll kill ‘em. Just tell me who, and they’re dead.”

He’s killed plenty of people for lesser things than the unforgiveable crime of hurting his best and only friend.

His trigger finger twitches on the leather of Redemption’s holster.

It takes several minutes before he manages to coax the truth out of you, and when he hears you choke through a raw throat that your partner has been unfaithful, he’s…

… Conflicted.

First, there’s a surging upsweep of excitement. You’ve been spending less and less time with the Horseman lately, something your partner implemented after complaining that Strife would end up getting you killed someday. The nerve… You’re never safer than when Strife is at your side. Of course, there are times when he brings you to places where danger is present, but he’d die before he let said danger touch one, precious hair on your head. Now though, with your confession that you’ve left that cowardly human for good, Strife realises what that really means.

You’re free. You’re no longer tied to the arm of another, and he can finally have you all to himself!

Then, comes the guilt.

Selfish. How could he possibly be happy that your heart has been broken. Death always said Strife was sicker in the head than the rest of them…

Finally, every other thought he has is promptly buried by an uncontrollable, white-hot rage.

How dare they…

How DARE they!

Quick as a flash, he’s ripping Redmption from its holster and storming towards your bedroom door. His jagged edges are too sharp, too barbed and bristling to try and console you right now… He’d only end up hurting you…

“Strife! Wait!” you choke out, scrambling out of bed after him as soon as you realise his intent, “Stop! Wait, w-wait, wait! Don’t!”

It’s only the feeling of your tiny hands wrapping around his gun arm and clinging to it with feverish desperation that the red mist of rage starts to lift, leaving him huffing and snarling like an injured wolf in the doorway to your room.

“Please…” Your watery voice calls him back from the edge he’s teetering on, and he stiffens when you press your forehead into the swell of his bicep, as if to push your plea directly into his body. “Please. Don’t give me something else to have to cope with.”

It’s the only way to reach him.

Appeal to the trigger-happy Horseman’s soft spot.

You.

He loves causing trouble. But he hates when that trouble circles back to you.

With a deep, resonant exhale, Strife’s shoulders slump and he reluctantly slips Redemption back into its holster.

Then, in one, sweeping motion, he spins on his heel and bends down, scooping you off the floor, never minding the yelp of shock he draws from your chapped lips. You’d been crying for a while before he arrived.

The knowledge sets his temper flaring.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he forces the fire in his belly to quell, focusing on the cooling balm of having you held close to him.

With you in arm, he ventures into your living area and plonks himself down in front of the television on your sofa, causing its wooden frame to creak pathetically under his weight. Still bridling, he takes care in nudging a set of controls into your hands.

“Wanna watch somethin’,” he says churlishly, hoping you don’t think his mood is aimed at you, “Somethin’ funny… Cheer me up.”

‘Cheer you up,’ he doesn’t say, because that would invite a level of vulnerability that he isn’t ready to address just yet.

For you, it feels as though you’re sitting in the lap of a ticking time-bomb, though the both of you know that so long as you’re here, he won’t explode.

You’re still crying though, startled by a Horseman sweeping like a hurricane through your house, but at least you’re not alone with your thoughts anymore, nor the doubts or insecurities that keep scuttling like little bugs inside your head. Instead, you can focus on Strife, who eases his hissing temper back bit by bit, tipping you into his chest and curling his chin over you as he glares unseeing at the television screen.

There’ll be Hell to pay, owed by the human who did this to you. Of that he has no doubt. Oh, they’ll suffer, but sadly, he won’t kill them. Anyone who would look elsewhere for love when they had someone like you in their corner is the biggest fool in the Universe, and Strife intends to make sure they know it.

But for as long as you still draw breath, he doesn’t plan on letting another soul try to take you away from him again.

[reddesires]

Derelict. [Blue Eyes x Human!Reader]

Reference: This Imagine

Implied Blue Eyes x Human!Reader

Rating: Angst (a resolved ending).

Fandom: Planet Of The Apes

A/N: My first angst/Blue Eyes work on my blog as of now, hopefully many more to come in the near future. Can you believe I was listening to Bartender by T-Pain while writing this 💀

"Father, am I an outcast?" The question hung in the air with such intensity that the truth of the question didn't even have to be reflected on, there was always an inkling lingering in the reality of your mind, it was just hard to come to terms with it. How could you possibly be an outsider when this was truly all you really knew?

Maurice was your father, and the colony was your home. You very much knew that you were a human, but were you truly one of them if you were raised by the likes of apes? You wondered on that often, Maurice and Caesar were your looking glass into the world you barely got a taste of. Your reflection was only a reminder that you just may be the last of your species.

"No, you are a part of us." Your father signed to you, his expression firm and his reassurance sturdy, but you felt nothing as such. You felt as if your foundation was unstable and on the cusp of collapse. You felt your body's heavy movements as a sigh escape the entrapment of your lungs as the previous events weighed down on your mind.

                                 ○●○●○●○●○

Taking walks on your own were nothing out of the norm for you sometimes you just felt residing too long within the confines of the colony is overbearing and in a way you understood that it was normal for humans or says Caesar, Maurice tends to explain a bit more in detail human concepts whilst Caesar often keeps it short and simple, you don't push for more information from him since the distant look in his eye triggers something reminiscent of empathy inside of you.

Though your relationship with Caesar is best described as being at arms length, your relationship with his eldest son Blue Eyes was an entirely different story. Blue eyes was your kindred spirit since the moment you were taken in. He and Ash became your close companions, and thus, a trio formed in the midst of uneasiness of a human child amongst the ape colony.

It wasn't long before you became one of them and you being just a child, you were of no harm to any of them and since you were taken under the wing of the most trusted member of the colony, there was hardly any protests aside from Koba and his great distaste of the apparently bloodthirsty (gremlin) human child standing before him.

You jump over a fallen over tree that rested 2 feet away from a reserved area that you, blue eyes and Ash often habituated since it was so close to the river you all would fish from, you hadn't seen blue eyes or Ash so far today so you figured that you'd find here waiting on you to catch up with since you slept in today.

As you approached, you heard multiple voices jeering in tone, feeling an anxious feeling creeping up your throat so you cautiously crouch, making sure to keep out of sight in the tall grass watching within a reasonable distance.

You see Blue Eyes and Ash with their backs to you but with their hunched over position it seems that this encounter with the clique of young apes infront of them was anything but pleasant, the opposing apes had mannerisms that came off as condescending and taunting as they seemed to tower over your friends.

"Blue eyes weak.. for being friends with weak human" the male ape huffed out a laugh, the other apes following the action, they were amused by the way blue eyes turned into himself, by his body language you can tell he was on the defensive and you feared that it could possibly break out in a brawl but your body refused to move from your position to interfere.

The group were following Blue Eyes and Ash's movements almost as if they had the intention of corning them somehow but now you were in view of your friends fronts, their expressions and hand signs on full display for you.

Blue eyes had a stressed and almost kicked puppy dog simper while Ash looked at the apes with a leer. Clearly, he was almost at his limit of being mocked upon.

You gazed at Blue Eyes' hands, and he signed out his response. "I'm not weak. She's just an outcast." His signing was harsh and precise in nature, as if he was trying to express the finality with the subject to get it over with, ash's face contorted with clear disagreement and shock within a second.

You mouth fell open in disbelief and a gasp was ripped from your chest, the sound exposing your location to the nearby apes, Blue Eyes' face fell as he met your watery gaze, the group of apes hooted with exclamations of mirth at your presence, you couldn't keep your composure as you turned to run back down the path back towards the colony.

Morbid thoughts ran rapid in your head along with memories that contained blue eyes in the them, the memories of moments you two shared, how you two snuck off into the woods late at night to get a glimpse of the night sky with no one else but each other, your hands barely grazing as you laid next to each in the clear area or the time when he carried you on his back rushing back to the colony when you fell out of tree and bruised your entire right side, he proceeded to stay by your side your entire recovery. Did that even mean anything to him? Did he even care about you at all?

You heard a hard and fast pounding on the dirt ground before you felt a warm calloused hand grab your wrist, but you were quick to release yourself from his grasp as you whirled around.

Blue Eyes was standing before you, his chest rising and falling in panicked breathing as he reached for you again but you stepped away, tears of hurt slipped from your eyes as you stared at him with bewildered sadness.

"I thought we were friends" Your voice wavered, sniffles broke through the tense atmosphere as Blue Eyes seemed to be struggling with an internal debate, you never would have thought that he would back stab you by demeaning you in such a way, you truly thought your exterior didn't matter to him but you suppose your humanness was a bigger dilemma than you thought.

"We are.." He voiced out, despite knowing him for as long as you have hearing his voice was always a pleasant surprise for you, his voice was quiet with a rasping edge to it almost as if his vocal cords were working overtime due to his lack of speaking but you always thought it had a sweet undertone to it.

He looked desperate to comfort you, and he knew that he was at fault, but it killed him to see you so heartbroken. He's never seen you cry with such intensity.

More tears only seemed to overflow, and a sob racked your body as you looked into his crystalline eyes that also reflected your own sadness. You turned your back on his outstretched palm, ignoring his plea for forgiveness.

"I don't believe you."

                                    ○●○●○●○●○●○

Maurice placed his large hand on top of your head, his palm encasing the entire top of your scalp. He gently petted you in tender affection. You felt more tears build up in the corners of your eyes and hugged your knees closer to your chest in a plea to keep the dam from bursting from your eyes.

"Some do not understand..Some too focused on differences. You belong, you are loved." Your father signed to you, you gazed up into his eyes and you could clearly see the truth of his words as you thought back on all the times that you have been accepted by the ones who matter to you.

"Blue eyes young..trying to find his place just as you..he knows, you are of his kin." As much as it hurts to think about, you know that your father is right. You nod back at him with a strained smile. You look behind him, and you're met with blue eyes standing there with a regretful look to him.

Maurice also looks back before he nods to you and pats your head, slowly turning and leaving as he passes by Blue Eyes he gives a stern stare, Blue Eyes lowers his head shamefully before he ambles over to the ledge your sitting on.

As he sits next to you, notice that he's covered in mud and there's scratches on his face and hands and out of instinctive worry you grab his hand inspecting the wounds on his rough hands. You look to his face, and he stares back at you with a boyish charm to his face. "I fight Jon.. he called us weak.." He grabbed your hands into his, a remorseful look settling taking over his features, you feel your stomach turn in nervousness to how intimate in nature this seems to you, he's so close to you that you two could join in foreheads and you could feel the dull yearning in your body.

"You being human doesn't matter.. to me.. never will." You feel a smile pinching at the corners of your lips as you watched him present his palm to you. You couldn't help a tear fall from your eyes. You slid your fingers over his palm before holding it back into your hand with elation.

Your humanness didn't have to be a dilemma. You belong right where you are with those who love you.

[orbital-inclination]

Moltendreams - Ink Sans Alias: Fable Pronouns: he/him Personality: Upbeat and Absent Minded Ink seems perpetually Cheerful, Optimistic and full of energy. Frivolous and playful. He may came across as Tone Deaf or inappropriate, seeming unaware of sensitive subjects. However Ink is rarely, if ever intentionally mean or callous. Notes:

Fable carries a notebook he uses to record things he doesn't want to forget. His memory issues aren't as severe as Ink's, but he is still prone to forgetting things easily, specially: names to faces and important dates.

Fable loves watercolor.

His eyelights change shape and color to anything! (stars, exclamation points, swirls, etc.)

He also loves Fashion and even designs his own outfits.

He knows how to sew and stitch and usually has a comment on the tip of his tongue about your fashion choices.

Broomie is hollow inside and filled with diluted paint. Can be any color but usually the paint is associated with a positive emotion. - More info Under cut! -

The Doodleshere: In Moltendreams, Fable must travel to AUs directly to collect paint from them. In this multiverse, the Doodlesphere is scribbled on top of Fable's original AU, and rests in a sort of OUT OF BOUNDS space between AUs. Through the Doodlesphere, Fable can access every AU he has discovered so far. The Doodlesphere is an endlessly expanding liminal space; a series of interconnected empty indoor spaces, shops, malls, palaces, endless variants of regions of the underground, each reflecting an AU, through a door in each room. Despite how confusing the layout of Doodlesphere may seem to the outsider, Fable instinctively knows where everything is. Nothing is ever lost in the Doodleshere.

About: Fable acts as a Muse for Creation, he does not create AUs by himself but rather, assists in the creation by attempting to cox a Spirit of Creation (in-universe term and stand-in for the creator of a particular AU) into taking action. Most Spirits of Creation will create AUs on their own, but many will hesitate, abandoned their world before it's finished, or simply sit still while a world remains incomplete, seemingly waiting for some unknown que. While the Spirits can be influenced and encouraged, ultimately, they cannot be controlled, even by Fable. Fable has a similar history as Canonical Ink. He originated in a discarded AU, soulless but willed to life by a Spirit of Creation before it departed. Fueled by the desire to never experience the empty monotony of an unfinished AU again, Fable travels the multiverse to encourage Spirits of Creation to finish their work. Though the consequences of his actions were unintentional, Fable initially favored Positive AUs and could be said to be partially responsible for the state of the Multiverse as it is today. Happiness feels good. Joy feels good. Fable wants to feel good. He wants others to feel good too. Outcode Politics: Fable places equal value on all creation, and for that reason, he is forced into a position where he feels obligated to respect all "characters" he comes across, even "characters" like Error. Can art destroy itself? Should art destroy itself, if that is the intention of the creator? What do you do when one Artist's art can only be appreciated through the destruction of another Artist's work? Ink doesn't think of it in exactly those terms, but that is the gist of his internal conflict. Passive interference in any given AU is a problem for Fable. He believes the "narrative" should be left to play out organically without outside interference. To interfere could jeopardize the AU's stability. Or worse, antagonize the Creation Spirit that made it. Which can be dangerous for the inhabitants. But for the average encounter, Fable is a wild card. He follows no strict rules, and is just as likely to chase other outcodes off as he is to befriend them and attempt to guild them. Paint and Vials:

Specific AUs give Ink specific paint colors tied to certain emotions. Underfell will give Ink shades of red/anger/righteousness for example but won’t give him yellow/euphoria. Horrortale will give him deep blue/loneliness/grief and shades of purple/fear but won’t give him green/envy etc.

the more common the au is, the more of a specific color Ink will be able to collect from it.

this means that if a certain AU is rare he will use up the color associated with it more quickly. He will try to avoid situations that drain that specific color because it will be harder to refill it later.

Ink drinks a little bit of every color at the same time, daily. Rather than one at a time as it applies to a specific situation

it’s easier for Ink to collect paint from AUs in the “WIP” phase because the paint hasn’t dried yet AFCRUFTAFH

He can gather paint from a “finished” world but he won’t get as much.

Like Canonical Ink, when Fable is drained of paint he will become doll-like, an empty unresponsive husk. with a couple caveats. 1. Fable is aware of things that happen during this period. he just can’t react to them.

2. if what’s left of his magic feels threatened, (the minimal stuff that is keeping his body together) he will react to defend himself. it’s more reflex/instinctive than thought out, however.

3. if Fable had been focusing on a task, goal, or thought prior to going dry, he will react to external things related to that specific task/goal/thought.

Fable doesn’t immediately bounce back after getting his vials refilled. He’s sluggish, and there’s a noticeable buffer period between when something happens and when he reacts to it. He remembers what happened and what was said to him. This is the second most vulnerable period for him. if someone wanted to manipulate or influence him that would be the time to do it. OG Ink Sans/Inktale @.comyet Moltendreams @ me

[mortalityplays]

Hi! I really liked and agreed with your post on purple prose, and I was curious what books if any you'd describe as having purple prose. Not even necessarily as shorthand for calling it bad! just examples of it, especially from non-classic literature. Unless the term is entirely subjective lol. Feel free to reply to this ask publicly or privately; I don't mind either way

Have some Conan the Barbarian (sorry about! the racism):

TORCHES flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the east held carnival by night. In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they liked, for honest people shunned the quarters, and watchmen, well paid with stained coins, did not interfere with their sport. Along the crooked, unpaved streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisterers staggered, roaring. Steel glinted in the shadows where wolf preyed on wolf, and from the darkness rose the shrill laughter of women, and the sounds of scufflings and strugglings. Torchlight licked luridly from broken windows and wide-thrown doors, and out of those doors, stale smells of wine and rank sweaty bodies, clamor of drinking-jacks and fists hammered on rough tables, snatches of obscene songs, rushed like a blow in the face. In one of these dens merriment thundered to the low smoke- stained roof, where rascals gathered in every stage of rags and tatters—furtive cut-purses, leering kidnappers, quick- fingered thieves, swaggering bravoes with their wenches, strident-voiced women clad in tawdry finery. Native rogues were the dominant element—dark-skinned, dark-eyed Zamorians, with daggers at their girdles and guile in their hearts. But there were wolves of half a dozen outland nations there as well. There was a giant Hyperborean renegade, taciturn, dangerous, with a broadsword strapped to his great gaunt frame—for men wore steel openly in the Maul. There was a Shemitish counterfeiter, with his hook nose and curled blue-black beard. There was a bold- eyed Brythunian wench, sitting on the knee of a tawny-haired Gunderman—a wandering mercenary soldier, a deserter from some defeated army. And the fat gross rogue whose bawdy jests were causing all the shouts of mirth was a professional kidnapper come up from distant Koth to teach woman-stealing to Zamorians who were born with more knowledge of the art than he could ever attain.

Conan is an interesting example imo because it displays a lot of the highs and lows of pulp. Robert E. Howard could also write very punchy, straightforward action, and often did - but part of the selling point for the emerging genre fiction of the era was that it was lurid and lascivious. While the extract above is. Well. Bad. It is worth recognising that within its context it was also kind of experimental.

Howard wrote these drooling, sort of bewildering, sensory passages for the same reason Marvel movies punch you in the face with saturated colours and rapid cuts and a billion VFX. You see it in the work of H.P. Lovecraft too, and I will grudgingly acknowledge that that's something worth recognising about his literary impact. I also think Lovecraft was a pretty bad technical writer, personally, but that's a whole other soapbox.

My point is that a lot of truly purple prose today (in the sense that it is extraneous, distracting, undermines its own function) traces its legacy to this era of pulp where there was a distinct secondary purpose to overwhelming the reader with ornamentation. It was self-consciously indulgent, and strikingly distinct from the more genteel floridity of equally bad literary novelists. For instance, compare the above with the even purpler prose of the famously awful Irene Iddesleigh:

On being introduced to all those outside his present circle of acquaintance on this evening, and viewing the dazzling glow of splendour which shone, through spectacles of wonder, in all its glory, Sir John felt his past life but a dismal dream, brightened here and there with a crystal speck of sunshine that had partly hidden its gladdening rays of bright futurity until compelled to glitter with the daring effect they soon should produce. But there awaited his view another beam of life’s bright rays, who, on entering, last of all, commanded the minute attention of every one present—this was the beautiful Irene Iddesleigh. How the look of jealousy, combined with sarcasm, substituted those of love and bashfulness! How the titter of tainted mockery rang throughout the entire apartment, and could hardly fail to catch the ear of her whose queenly appearance occasioned it! These looks and taunts serving to convince Sir John of Nature’s fragile cloak which covers too often the image of indignation and false show, and seals within the breasts of honour and equality resolutions of an iron mould. On being introduced to Irene, Sir John concluded instantly, without instituting further inquiry, that this must be the original of the portrait so warmly admired by him. There she stood, an image of perfection and divine beauty, attired in a robe of richest snowy tint, relieved here and there by a few tiny sprigs of the most dainty maidenhair fern, without any ornaments whatever, save a diamond necklet of famous sparkling lustre and priceless value.

Christ. Hopefully you can see the depth of the scale here - the Conan extract is muddy and difficult to read, but this is near incomprehensible. Part of the reason this passage is so much worse is that there is even less intent behind the author's use of language. Here, she is working overtime to evoke a kind of dramatic-intellectual style borrowed from writers like the Brontë sisters (imo at least - not an expert, that's just the sense I get as a reader). The further these flourishes get from lending purpose to the meaning of the prose, the harder they are to parse.

BUT my other point is: far fewer writers these days set out to emulate Irene Iddesleigh's arch, roundabout, society conscious voice than they do the hallmarks of classic pulp. We're inured to sex and violence, sin and debauchery in fiction today, so extracts like the Conan example feel even more bloated than they did in their time. And that creates a real pitfall for amateur genre writers: the instinct to pay homage to the stylistic choices of the classics can lead them right into Irene Iddesleigh territory.

Too often, the purpose of these overwrought, leering descriptions isn't calculated to thrill the audience, but to establish a piece in the company of older works the writer admires. And that's what leads to truly purple prose in contemporary genre writing, which makes readers scoff and laugh, which makes authors self-conscious and timid, which leads us here to a point where wordy description is inaccurately identified as the problem. It's not. The problem is excess - and when something has purpose, by definition, it's not excessive.

[brainworms-all-night-long]

Jumpscares you, it is brothers angst time >:]

3,979 Words

Part one: Outsider's interference

Once upon a time Two brothers left all of their suffering behind A little smile Oh brother join me, please just stay a while — [Under the apple tree | original song by xXtha on YT]

The portal closed and Dream was left there standing on the green grass alone. 

The fox's words took hold in his mind and finally allowed him to connect the loose pieces of a puzzle already he had already mostly solved, but stayed in futile denial over what it formed.

Something in the hedgehog cracked.

The entire village be damned, this is his little brother we're talking about, and Dream just had enough of cleaning and dressing the endless wounds the younger gets when he "trips and falls" because he knows for sure Night barely leaves the damned tree anyway. 

The tree.

Dream looked up at the hill. The tree's unmistakable might loomed over him with the duo color of apples shining just like the stars above, hundreds of tiny specks of light blending into the vast void.

There was guilt for the disdain he began to feel when pointing to it as the only reason he was stuck here, but he let it fester anyway. If anything, it helped him steel his resolve. There was a very loose plan held trapped at the back of his head since he saw a scratch on Night's face he didn't see happen when they were playing for the first time, and perhaps it would be partial to revisit it.

Thoughts of running away and making his home wherever and whenever he wanted that used to be but a distant daydream now felt tangible, and he grabbed onto them.

The hedgehog wasn't even sure why though. Today was barely any different than yesterday in terms of routine, could the traveler fox really have left such an impact? Was it the confirmation of all his worries by an unknown outsider to their situation? Being able to see that yes, getting out of here is possible? That there exists someone out there who can come an go as they please with no responsibility tying them down?

Dream envied him. 

Being able to come and go not just within the same world but to others as well whenever he felt like it was something he'd let his arm be cut off for. He hoped the fox enjoys his travels.

Speaking of limbs though, the guardian's legs were already halfway to where his barely thought through plan had led him, his head finally catching up.

Leaving the tree unguarded is something he couldn't do, and picking all of the apples would simply be too time consuming and there were but few hours left until dawn.

There was no question of waiting until tomorrow least he chickens out and lets his brother get hurt again.

It simply couldn't be allowed to go on for any longer. His mother must forgive him for this, but it's for Night's and his own good. 

The destination of his unconvincing conviction was the always halfway opened window of the seamstresses' shop that he snuck through. There, he grabbed a bigger bag for himself and stuffed it with a pair of ordinary clothes and boots that would loosely fit the two of them.

They couldn't function on just one set out in the wild that was for sure, even if their clothes were magic or whatever. Variety was the spice of life as they say.

After leaving a few rings on the counter and making sure he kept as quiet as possible, he slid the window into the position it was before disturbed and thanked for Saturn not being outright on the reception table as she sometimes favors being.

With the bag over his shoulder, he ran to the back of Oakley's, where the carpenter was sure to keep his heavier, more dangerous woodworking tools. 

After almost knocking down a set of planks, Dream found what he was looking for. 

Grabbing the axe's handle and using one leg for support, he wrestled it out of the scarred stump and gave a long pacing exhale.

All necessary things acquired, Dream ignored his heart beating in his throat while making his way uphill. 

He reached for the closest apples with the full intent of placing them along with the clothes into the bag.

He never saw them decay or be damaged by any means your average apple would, and while he also wasn't exactly privy to how the whole "emotional balance" thing worked, two of each should be enough right? Before he even managed to touch one of the apples though, he felt blue eyes intently staring at him.

"What are you doing?" 

Night was peering at him from one of the thick branches with a suspicious expression.

Dream didn't answer as he ripped the golden fruit off the branch and threw it into the open bag.

"Where's Nine, what are you doing?" 

The fox hopped down, asking more insistently this time, exchanging bewildered glances between Dream and the tree. 

"He left. And we're about to as well." 

Internally cursing himself, Dream went to pull on another apple.

He should've known that he'd have to get through to Night on this first, and explain his point of view. Maybe they should've pre-planned something. But it was whatever now, too late.

"What's gotten into you what-" 

The fox grabbed onto his hand to stop him, but all it did was pluck the fruit right off its stem as Dream refused to let go of it.

Night grasped and immediately took a step back. The hedgehog resumed his work towards the other side of the tree as if that distraction didn't even happen, with the younger trailing behind.

"We are not allowed to pick the apples for no reason Dream, stop!"

He flailed his arms around, trying to place himself between his brother and the next fruit in his crosshairs, but was effortlessly pushed away. 

It was when the hedgehog went for the dark apple he realized one of the (very definitely many) holes in his plan.

It was said they cannot interact with the apples from their opposite side but Dream never bothered to come up with or figure out a reason why. It unfortunately became abundantly clear that if he touches one, it changes color, therefore nullifying the whole balance aspect.

"Dream!!" 

Night all but screamed to get his brother's attention, only for the hedgehog to click his tongue and turn to him with a frown.

"What, I think it's pretty obvious what I'm doing here." Time for plan B then. "But I'll need your help, so go grab two apples from your side of the tree and a your books into this bag." He nonchalantly motioned his hand and the bag swung gently with its weight.

"What do you mean we're about to leave- and why did you bring an axe!?" 

The kit exclaimed, pointing behind them where the tool stood stuck in the ground for later use.

Dream grit his teeth. Not out of anger, he could never be angry at the little fox, especially not when he was right. But this... complicated things.

He needs the other on his side as quickly as possible if they want to disappear before the dawn, but something told him that is gonna be near impossible to accomplish in amount of time.

Dream sighed, those baby blue eyes looking at him with all the confusion and ferocity in the world as he gently placed his hand on the little guardian's shoulder.

"Look." The hedgehog started slowly. He could at least try, "Neither me nor you are happy in here. There's no point in staying. So I'm taking the apples and we're leaving." 

"Leaving? But, but to where?" Nightmare insisted pushing his brother's hand away, with his confusion quickly morphing into fear, "We can't just leave the tree here, you know that! You're not gonna cut it down, are you?"

Dream was silenced quickly. Yes. Yes, that was the plan. And the reasoning for the plan.  

He tightened his brushed off hand into a fist and looked away.

It sounded completely outlandish when said out loud by someone else outside of his head though, and he found himself hesitating.

But he always hesitated, always put things off for later, and always let others have a say in what he does. 

And he was tired of that. Tired of himself for being like that.

He hates that it's his little brother of all people that has to suffer his newfound stubbornness first, but it has to start somewhere, no? 

"I know we can't just leave it standing while we're no longer here to guard it, but we also don't have time or a way to just take every single apple off and take it with us, so I'm doing the second best thing." He could at least explain his reasoning. "We can't stay here anymore, I can't allow them to hurt you again."

Night's ears dropped flat against his head with tails curling around his legs. The hedgehog found it impossible to keep his aloof attitude up.

"You can't just cut down the tree! That's- you realize that would kill our mother right?"

Dream refused to phrase it like that at any point in his head, yet the other served it to him as bluntly as possible. 

And again. The distraught fox was right.

The guardian sucked in a deep breath.

Quite frankly, he didn't see a difference between the tree standing and it being down in regards to his mother's influence. If anything he barely heard her anymore, and she definitely didn't do anything to protect Night while he was away, so it really wasn't hard to come to terms with it.

She felt pretty much dead to him for a long time. 

"I know. But if I had to choose between seeing you smile genuinely again, just once, or sitting idly underneath that stupid tree while being eaten alive by the itch of being literally anywhere else but here, I think the answer is obvious." 

Dream was unable to meet his brother's face anymore, this whole ordeal turning out to be much heavier than he could ever expect being. 

The one thing turning out exactly how he predicted though, was Night not being convinced in the slightest.

"Stop! Did you think about the consequences of this, like at all!? What if the apples we take will rot anyway once the tree is cut, what if we die if the tree does, what if it can't even be cut with a regular axe, what if- what-" The kit stammered, so many thoughts swarming and falling over each other in that big little head of his as he tried to wrap it around his brother's seemingly sudden 180°.

He was always such a worry wart, going over and catastrophizing any and all possibilities, and normally Dream would find it endearing, jokingly wave him off, assure him all would be alright eventually. But now he wasn't so sure of it himself

"Why are you just so ok with cutting it down in the first place!?" 

Nightmare finally barked out, and while his concerns were justified, Dream couldn't afford them.

Maybe he shouldn't have been burdened with such a responsibility in the first place, then. If it was so easy for him to flip on his duty. Did anyone ask him if he wanted it? No. So why should he have to get permission to rid of it.

"Maybe not, but tell me, do you feel happy here. Like, at all? Getting kicked around like a play ball and then having a blackeye for seven days while hiding in the tree? Where you won't even talk to me? Where you keep lying to my face for no reason?" 

The last question appeared to shoot right through Night's heart and the hedgehog regretted the irritated tone that seeped into his words. Unfortunately that didn't even scratch the surface of how he felt about his brother closing off to him at every turn.

Night grabbed onto the cape draped around his shoulders and shook his head.

"Well, obviously not... b-but! This is our only home! And where would we even go, we can't just leave to nowhere."  

Suddenly, the little guardian's face lit up with a realization.

"Wait. He told you, didn't he. That's why you're–" 

"That the villagers are relentlessly bullying you behind my back?" Dream tried to not let it get to him, the fact that his brother was more willing to confide in a stranger he knew for a couple of hours instead of him, "Don't worry I already knew, and trust that I feel horrible and like an idiot for not doing anything about it sooner. But hey, better late than never Eh?" that they barely talked to each other anymore.

He shrugged at the end, trying to shake off some of the icy sweat trickling through his bristled spines and fur. He felt sick just thinking about it, let alone hearing himself admit it out loud like that.

He needed this to be over already. 

"You can't be serious." 

His brother's demeanor completely dropped after that. 

There was no winning him over it seemed, (not that he was in any place to try and be convincing) so Dream used that as a convenient punctuation point for him to go get the axe. 

"I am. And we're also running out of time, so if you'd just pack your things and let me do my thing, we'll be up over and gone sooner than later."

He gripped the handle, the tool much heavier in his hand than it was before and he turned back to face his brother.

"No. I won't let you go through with this." 

Dream staggered, the little guardian stood before the tree, one hand gripped the cape closed over his chest and the other held protectively outstretched in front of the tree.

"I'm doing this for us Night. For you. I can't let us stay here anymore."

Dream said through his teeth, fighting back the burn behind his eyes.

"We'll why are you pointing an axe at ME then huh? 'Doing it for me', you weren't even meaning to TELL me before it was already DONE AND OVER!" 

The fox yelled, steadily losing his own battle with years as they welled up, no matter how hard he tried to he tried to shake them away and keep up his resolute stance.

Dream's mouth grew to a thin line, grip on the handle as strong as he could hold, yet the thing began to slip through his fingers anyway. 

"Night please–" 

"You're doing this just for your own selfish sake. We are supposed to GUARD the tree, that's why we were born, and you're here just–" 

The hedgehog sneered.

"So you'd rather be bullied to death here than make one leap of faith and a sacrifice?"

Nightmare sucked in a shaky breath, looking behind him, down the hill, and then back at his brother while barely moving his head as the tears pushed over the edge and cut through the fur on his muzzle. 

"Y-yes."

Dream grimaced, trying and failing to swallow a thick lump of saliva clogging his throat. Or maybe it was his actual heart up there. Who could tell at this point.

"You don't mean that."

The little fox shook like a leaf, staring daggers into his brother's shoes.

"We were born to do this Dream, we- we can't–"

"We can't just keep waiting for one of us to drop dead or get killed Nightmare." 

The fox's eyes darted up at the mention of his full name. Dream rarely used it, if ever. He thought it sounded way too mean, and contained too many syllables, so it "took too long to say." 

Maybe on the off chances he was being a patronizing big brother and trying to poke fun at how the little guardian acted so much more mature than some adults in the village, he'd use the full name. But this was hardly a lighthearted jab and far away from a good laugh the two brothers once shared (when was the last time they did that.)

"We are meant to guard the tree with our lives if necessary, you know. You'll–" the fox swallowed thickly blinking away his tears and locking eyes with his brother properly "You will have to get through me first." 

Dream couldn't even move his facial muscles at this point, so he just gave his brother an empty stare. 

He quickly ran through the events that led the two of them to this confrontation in the first place, because where he stood now felt just so... surreal.

He could drop it here and now though. Stick the axe back in the ground and put his hands up in a surrender. They would eventually laugh it off a couple weeks later (or not talk about it at all) and everything would go back to the repetitive, mind numbing routine.

The same injuries he'd had to take care of, the same song and dance he would have to do to keep the villagers he never asked for to be here happy. 

And then slowly burn out while he watches his brother slowly die right next to him as each day slips on by.

He could do that. 

Dream sighed, surprising himself that there even was any air left in him as he did so, and he took a shaky step forward.

"Out of my way. Last warning."

Nightmare didn't waver, whether it was because of his determination or fear keeping him frozen in place didn't exactly matter.

The hedgehog could barely keep himself standing, let alone walk towards the tree and swing the axe, but he had to. He had to if he wanted to get them out of this lukewarm hell.

"NO! What you want to do is unthinkable!" The fox cried and finally moved to take a step closer to the tree, maintaining the distance between them and seeking comfort from his mother who would not respond to him. She never did.

"I can't let you–" 

Or perhaps this time she will. Except not with comfort and gentle words as a mother should to their distraught child, but an earsplitting shriek that petrified both of them in place.

Despite it being past midnight, the sky somehow grew darker along with everything else alive around them.

An unrelenting grasp of burning chill and rot bloomed from the base of the tree and the world was set to slow motion when a single twinkle of gold caught Dream's eye.

All the dreadful slag keeping his body still vanished for the moment as adrenaline took over and the axe soared through the air.

It crashed through the branches and disappeared, dropping a few dry twigs, blackened leaves and a single, golden apple in its wake that the hedgehog barely caught.

The little fruit felt like a ton heavy weight once safely landing in his palms, and it dragged him into a collision with the ground. Blue pants scraped dry dirt and dead grass, while he held the fruit as close to his chest as possible.

He felt cold. Unbelievably so. It was like being plunged into an icy lake (not that he knew how that felt like, it used to be always pleasantly warm here) and as one would if underwater, he found it impossible to breathe.

The only thing keeping him from drowning completely was the tiny ball of golden fire clasped in his hands.

But keeping it outside wasn't nearly enough, he still couldn't breathe, he was sure to die if he doesn't figure out a way to get air back to his lungs. He doesn't want to die yet, he can't. Not here and not now. He can't leave Night alone he can't let it end like this after finally doing something he can't.

And just as thoughtless as he went to get the axe, as on instinct as he threw it — there  was no hesitation when he bit into the apple and ate it whole.

Dream felt his insides explode in an inferno. The icy water washed out immediately and he gasped.

It was hardly any lasting salvation after that split-second relief, since it just slammed him onto the opposite end of a different extreme. 

Whispers and shouts of terrified people from too far away overtook his head and he felt his head hit the ground.

The pain of his tiara digging into his skull shot him back up right after and at last, he recovered enough to comprehend the scene before him.

He couldn't name the emotion he felt once laying eyes upon the tree that used to be an oppressive behemoth with a crown of ever expansive leaves, now reduced to nothing but a wilted piece of wood, but it made him let out a dry, humorless laugh.

The negative whirlwind of voices reached its peak when his brother's voice broke through, screaming for help.

Bellow the now dried trunk, Night was shoved to the ground, a pair of pitchforks that had no business being pointed at him loomed threateningly above.

 

Bad call.

A weapon. Dream needed a weapon.

With the axe out of the question, he summoned his staff — one he created not that long ago as a part of a bit to cheer the little guardian up after one of his more visible beat downs — but quickly realized he needed something more lethal.

With the seemingly endless surge of power the apple gave him, in a flash of light, the staff turned to a sword not a second before it was stabbed through a human's chest. 

Dream paid the stuttering body no mind aside from making sure it or the pitchforks didn't fall over at his brother, and he swung to the opposite side. This time only cutting a wooden handle in half, yet still staining the person holding it with blood not of their own. 

He could barely control the force of the swing until it ended up logged in the bark of a tree. He fought to pry it out, and thankfully he had plenty of time to do so as the crowd quickly got the memo to stay away.

Stained sword still threateningly in one hand, Dream went to grab the bag left untouched despite the mob formed around them, but stopped when noticing the two black apples sitting in it. 

Pacing himself, he went for the blanket instead, rolling it up and barely managing to stuff it inside with shaking hands. Next, he grabbed Night's latest book, since that's one he definitely has yet to finish reading, and he somehow managed to shove it on the side of the bag as well.

He felt the eyes on him, the oppressive presence of the people, the poisonous sting of negativity in his soul, the silent terror of his brother, and he couldn't be more tired of it. 

Good thing all of this will be over soon, and that he won't have to ever return to this place ever again. 

A corridor of terrified people split before him after he double checked all of the stuff he gathered, let go of his sword, and finally helped Night off the ground who looked like a stunned bug rolled over on his back. 

Wordlessly and hiding under his cape that made him stick out like a sore thumb amongst the darkness of the place, he grabbed Dream's outstretched hand and let him guide them both down the hill with little resistance, which the hedgehog was glad for.

No one said a word, not even a whisper was heard as the two guardians eventually disappeared on the horizon. Where were they going? No one knew, no one got to ask, and no one even thought about it enough to know.

Aside from death, there was a pair of shackles he left on that hill, and Dream was not gonna miss either.

[racefortheironthrone]

What differs a Bronze Age Monarchy from a Feudal or Modern State Monarchy? For whatever reson I have always been given the impression that Bronze Age Monarchy is the ancient version of either the former or the later, but that does not sound right.

Yeah, that would be a major misconception.

Bronze Age monarchies:

were far more centralized than medieval monarchies, with large, year-round palace complexes that functioned not just as fortresses but also as judicial centers, religious centers, storehouses, state planning apparati, and so on. To operate all these various functions, they employed a large bureaucracy that had, if not a monopoly, something of an oligopoly, on literacy, numeracy, and higher learning.

were highly involved in planning the economy, from organizing irrigation and other labor-intensive farming practices to keeping detailed records on production and taxation to coordinating the complex network of international trade that regulated the flow of both key commodities like tin but also luxury goods.

had more of a monopoly on military force, especially when it came to elite units like chariots. Training an archer and a driver to work in unison with a team of horses specifically bred to the task and custom chariots was a long and expensive process that only a monarch could provide the necessary surplus food and other resources for.

were not Christian. I can't stress enough how important this was as a structural force - Bronze Age monarchs did not have to deal with a large, European-wide, literate bureaucracy, with immense cultural power, that owned more land than they did. This isn't to say that there was no interaction between the temples and the state - I've talked recently about the tendency of Bronze Age monarchs to either be god-kings or priest-kings - but that the terms of interaction between the two much more heavily favored the state.

By contrast, medieval monarchies - and I'm aware that the term is something of a moving target, because what it meant to be a king in CE 600 is very different from what it means in CE 1100 or CE 1600 - were:

decentralized. They had small, peripatetic courts, and initially almost no bureaucracy. Governing power was much more broadly distributed down to the regional and local level through feudal contracts, and it was a long and very fraught process for the monarchs to gradually wrestle that power back.

much less engaged in the economy. Aside from tariffs and monetary policy, which is important, you don't really see medieval monarchs telling peasants when to plow and which fields (outside of the monarch's own personal fiefs), because that was an interference with the decentralized manorial system. You see fewer and smaller building projects, in no small part because the monarch usually couldn't afford to do them.

had less of a monopoly on violence. While the feudal exchange was supposed to give kings military service in exchange for land, in practice feudal levies could be slow to form, quick to disperse, and very fractious about their terms of service. This meant in practice that the nobility could exercise more hard power than their nominal overlords, which is why noble revolts were a common feature. Similarly, it took a long time for the monarchs to establish the necessary fiscal architecture for assembling professional armies and then eventually turning those professional armies into standing armies and then eventually turning those armies against the nobility - and by that point, we're not really talking about the Medieval period any more.

were Christian. And while there could certainly be exceptions of Emperors who picked Popes (instead of the other way around) or kings who could weirdly judo-flip their piety into Galician-style control of their national church, over time the pendulum definitely swung in favor of the Church having more power than any one monarch. They were wealthy, their wealth tended to grow over time because they were a corporate institution that invested their profits back into the company, they had huge amounts of cultural power, they had huge amounts of political power, and so on.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

The anon who sent the malleus ask. While there are some characters in twst cast that I tolerate there is just the Octavinelle trio that I dislike significantly. There actions during book 3 just made my blood boil. Vil was also on that list but he managed to redeem himself somewhat in book 6. At least he apologised. Can't say the same for merfolk trio. I'm curious though. Despite what they were doing to everyone (especially yuu) they are still very popular within the fandom. Your thoughts?

… Which Malleus ask?? I have several in my inbox and queue 💦

I think it's important to first establish that people do not always base whether they like/dislike a character based on the morality of the actions that character made in-universe. TWST is a game with a wide variety of characters, and a game which centers on both the good and the evil that they are capable of. Some characters apologize for their actions (Riddle with his apology tart, Vil at the start of book 6, Idia mumbles a sorry at the end of book 6), others don't or may have apologized off-screen (Jamil, Leona, Azul). We shouldn't expect them all to react to their issues in the same way, and nor does lack of a formal apology mean they do not feel remorse or aren't addressing their issues on their own way. For example, while we may not see Azul utter a "sorry" to anyone, we do see him and the twins changing up the business model at the Mostro Lounge after his OB, both in terms of food/drink sales and in terms of how to get one of his well-sought-after consultations. Many of the students, the OB boys in particular, do dubious things and that was a huge part of the advertising and marketing for TWST (and still is to this day); the franchise largely pulls fans who are interested in these types of narratives.

This brings me to Octavinelle. Was what they did scummy? Yeah. Do people have a right to judge them and dislike because of what they did? Also yes. But they remain popular anyway because the wrongs they committed are not the only things defining them. You have Azul's backstory, the complex friendship-business partnership deal between the trio, the very cohesive mermaid mafia theme--and, despite all the bad they've done, you can't also help but respect and admire them for the intelligence and planning it takes to carry out the operations that they do (+ using that asset when they return to help in book 4). Running a restaurant on their own AND Azul's... other business... while also being students and participating in clubs is nothing to sneeze at. They have redeeming qualities that fans love outside of being upset at them or holding them accountable for book 3.

I think what also helps to offset the evil of their actions in book 3 is the fact that it can be argued the 225 students they suckered "opted in" (and Yuu "opted in" too, it’s not like Azul forced them to sign). They came to Azul of their own free will seeking help, and Azul provided that help. He laid out the conditions and made them VERY clear, and it was the students who agreed to his terms and signed on the dotted line. Technically Azul did nothing "legally wrong" and played by the rules (respecting client confidentiality, taking advantage of loopholes), which is why Crowley cannot intervene. And, as Leona states later in book 3, anyone who falls for Azul's schemes is dumb and only has themselves to blame for thinking there is such an easy way out to their woes. Yes, it was dirty for Azul and the twins to interfere and/or set up the conditions in their favor, but there's also a degree of responsibility on the signers to read the terms and consider where the contracts may be deficient.

My point is, people will like what they like and it doesn’t solely come down to the righteousness (or lack thereof) of the characters’ behavior. I’d also say that behaviors themselves don’t always fall into “good” or “bad” categories. Azul’s contracts themselves are technically neutral. Other times, it depends on perspective. For examples, Malleus deems his actions in book 7 "good" but to everyone else it's "bad"--and the players, looking on, have to grapple with the dual nature of it. That's a discussion for another time though, I don't want to go too out of the scope of this ask.

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

I've been thinking about the societal structures built around regeneration on gallifrey lately, but also the fact that renegades do not get that. On gallifrey you can regenerate in a controlled and safe environment (obviously with some exceptions, but sudden regenerations are not the standard) where you know that an outside factor will not interfere with or influence your regeneration. And while its not guaranteed, there's some amount of reassurance that the regeneration is likely to be on your own terms and that you'll have time to recover and get used to your new body after

But a renegade is much more likely to face a violent and unpredictable death, its rare for one to live the full expected lifespan of a time lord, and when they do die regeneration is much more of a gamble, it is much easier for things to go wrong, just look at what happened with five or eight, and how an incorrect regeneration probably had lasting effects that could have easily been avoided or fixed in the hours after regeneration on gallifrey, but are now things they just have to live with. The unpredictability of regeneration for many renegades also leads to them regenerating out in the open, which makes them much easier to kill because you have access to them mid regeneration. And there also the factor that time lords are both rare and powerful, anyone knowing who they are may very well want to take advantage of either the energy a regenerating time lord produces or the vulnerable and easily manipulable state a newly regenerated time lord finds themself in, and others who don't know what a time lord is may want to experiment on them and it is much harder to fight back in a body you do not know yet

All that's to say, regeneration is probably an at least stressful experience for all time lords, you are literally dying, but it has to be terrifying for renegades. There is no guarantee that you will make it through without complications, or really at all. I mean looking at it this way its kind of obvious why the doctor tries so hard to cling onto each life they have