#abstract pri

[bubblesandstuff]

(via Abstract Art: Dance in Nature Comforter by Remco Kouw)

[merakiui]

eden.

yandere!rollo flamme x (female) reader cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, nsfw, non-con, captivity, obsession, menophilia/period sex, vague references to the story of adam & eve note - a self-indulgent paradise crafted by rollo's generous, gracious hand.

Silvery slivers of moonlight spill through the space in the curtains, illuminating the fluffy sheets you’re currently entangled in. A sharp sting in your abdomen rouses you from your dreamless slumber, so agonizing it causes you to slowly curl in on yourself. Miserable and defeated, you groan and bury your face in the neighboring pillow. Now muffled, the sound can only carry on for however much capacity your lungs possess. It eventually fizzles out into a solemn, silent resignation that forces you to accept the third day of the monthly curse that is the menstrual cycle.

It’s a natural facet of your biology, but that doesn’t stop you from moping when you register the slick sensation between your legs.

This wouldn’t be an issue if he got me pads or tampons, you think, bitter with resentment and worn to exhaustion even though you’ve only just woken.

Awkwardly, you attempt to sit up and pull the covers back to check the damage. Rollo’s sheets are always spotless and fresh; he washes them every two weeks on Sunday afternoons, dedicated to following his schedule down to the letter. But then the pain persists, stabbing through to your very organs, and you resume your pitiful fetal position in hopes that the severity may abate.

It does, but you think you’re just tricking yourself into believing so.

You can feel the blood soaking through your white nightgown, and the sodden fabric molds itself to your rear in a very unpleasant way. Shuddering, you blink back tears.

I wanna go home.

Home, as it happens, has felt less and less temporary with each passing month spent in Twisted Wonderland. You’ve come to associate the familiarity of Night Raven College and its student body with comfort and contentment. It’s your home away from home. A long, long way from home. But it’s all you’ve ever had since the Dark Mirror beckoned you forth, and it’s served as your solace for a while.

Initially, you felt trapped and alone, uncertain of your fate and what this could mean for your life. But now you realize that no amount of feeling stuck at school could ever compare to this—to real confinement.

Your capture and, subsequently, your captor’s inexplicable infatuation are the result of arbitrary observation. In his frigid, heavy-eyed stare, you fit the criteria for a definition of purity he has constructed for his own abstract conduct. Untouched by magic, unable to conjure even the simplest spell, you are the speck of hope within Pandora’s box—a blessing enshrouded in sin.

“It must be taxing to live amongst mages so often,” he had said, as if to extend sympathy.

Foolishly, not quite understanding where those words were coming from, you replied in jest, “Believe me, it is. The amount of times I’ve nearly been caught in the crossfire when my friends get into heated arguments… Yikes.”

Rollo Flamme is a righteous man, and thus it is his duty to build a pristine paradise for you. An Eden of his own creation, its sole purpose to safeguard you from the pollution that is magic and, by extension, mages.

But purity cannot be found here, for Rollo is a devil in this garden. Potted plants adorn the floor; it’s something of a floral jungle, filling the room with perfumed scents and pretty sights. You’ve made note of their habits—of every flower that wilts and rises once it’s watered, of every petal that pries itself open under the moon’s glow and closes come sunrise, of every stem that’s trimmed to prevent excess.

Rollo Flamme prefers tidy spaces, so this well-kept garden is sterile and peaceful. You’ve likened it to a morgue filled with dead things—or soon-to-be dead things, as most plants cannot thrive forever no matter how diligent the botanist.

He barked a humorless, monosyllabic laugh at your declaration. “Unless you’ve chosen to view yourself as a rotting corpse, which you are not, your comparison is both unwarranted and untrue,” he muttered, and that was the final utterance of that subject.

Conversations with Rollo are always impossible, which is why you’re dreading this next one when he turns the key in the lock. The sound is like a gunshot in an empty room: explosive. As if echoing your discomfort, your cramps worsen in their intensity and you suck in a shaky breath through grit teeth. You hear the door shut and lock, sentencing you to an exchange with an unwanted warden. He walks into a mostly serene scene, his glacial gaze sweeping across the room to pick apart any interruptions in this slice of Shangri-La.

“I’ve brought dinner,” he announces, and you lift your head to peer at the tray in his hands.

“I don’t want your grapes and croissants,” you spit. “I want something warm.”

“It is warm.” Stepping closer, he sets the tray on his desk. You spy wispy tendrils rising from a bowl of soup. “Sit up and eat before it goes cold.”

You attempt that, halfway up on your elbows, but then your abdomen tightens and you slump back into the sheets. “Hurts,” you whine, clutching your stomach.

Rollo sniffs at the air, brows furrowing. His shoes click out an even rhythm against the floorboards, stopping at your bedside. Without ceremony he yanks the duvet away and you hiss at him, humiliated even though it’s normal. Your skin prickles with a chill, and it’s made even worse when you see the fiery glint in his eyes—the perceptive sort of glaze that overtakes his pupils when he’s observing you. His eyes crawl down your figure, stopping at the stain sullying your satin nightgown.

“Ah, you’ve leaked.”

“Obviously,” you snap. “I did this yesterday, too. When are you going to get me pads? Or tampons? I’ll even take a towel at this point or toilet paper. Anything is better than this.”

Rollo shakes his head. “You’re perfectly fine as you are.”

“Free bleeding like this is filthy and unsanitary.”

“So I’ll simply clean you.”

You drag your hand down your face and groan. “Rollo, please. It hurts, and it’s wet and uncomfortable.”

“You’ve illustrated these points more than clearly.”

“So then… Then do something about it!”

He narrows his eyes at you, silently taking issue with your demand, before he hums his consideration. His face settles into something neutral while he removes his hat and shoes, dutifully setting them in their respective places.

Rollo surprises you when he climbs onto the bed, kneeling over you with the tiniest trace of a smile.

“Spread your legs. I’ll have a look.”

Fresh horror blooms on your already distraught countenance. You bickered with him over this yesterday when he’d brought a wet rag to your inner thigh, seething at you to stay still while he wiped you down. You’d wrestled with him for ownership of the rag, insisting in panicked huffs that you could do it yourself. Your slap had rung out in the silence, rendering Rollo stiff with stormy emotions. He’d relinquished the rag, scoffing at you for being ungrateful and resolving to scribble in his diary for the rest of the day—a prisoner to his own silent treatment.

Now, as his cold fingertips creep up your legs, you feel less hungry and more sick.

Weakly, you shake your head at him, sinking deeper into the pillows. “I… I can do it myself…”

“With what? The nightgown you’ve already dirtied?” He tilts his head at you and smiles an odd smile. You can’t place it, whether it’s smug or sweet, but it soon becomes the former when he throws your words right back at you: “That’s filthy and unsanitary.”

“You don’t have anything either,” you retort, only to grimace once more.

Rollo exhales through his nose, amusement flashing in his dreary eyes. “Because I’m not going to clean you. Not yet.”

Ice crystalizes within your veins, and the tension in your legs slackens enough for him to pull them apart. “What?”

His hands stray dangerously close. You stiffen, nerves tangling with panic. “There are ways to alleviate menstrual cramps. You should be aware of them, so I see no need to go into detail.”

“I know, yes, but—” You swallow thickly and push his reaching fingers away before they can curl around the hem of your nightgown. “Rollo, please don’t…”

“You’ll feel better,” he assures you matter-of-factly, whispering the words like that will change anything. “This is better than medicine and safer than magic.”

You shift beneath him, unsettled. “A… A hot compress will do. Y-You’ll get yourself dirty. Also! A-Also… If we don’t wash the sheets soon, it’ll stain.”

“Let it. It will serve as a reminder to both of us. A reminder that, though you may ruin these sheets with all manner of bodily fluids, they will still remain pure.” He lifts your nightgown, leaning close to your ear while palming at your stomach. You angle yourself away from him, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s because you’re perfect and clean, untainted by magic, that you are able to exist here. I envy you…”

His bare hand is cold against your warm belly and it travels lower, his fingers hooking around the waistband of your panties. You stifle a whine, tears welling up behind your eyelids.

“Rollo…”

“Even your voice…” He inhales deeply, high off the scent of you—metallic and pungent, a natural musk more enticing than any flowery perfume. “Everything about you is so clean, even the very blood that pools between your legs… Just a moment in your embrace is enough to wash away the layers of filth that accumulate on my person. Perhaps you might even manage to scrub beneath my skin, wash out every ounce of magic that rests within… Would that I could, I’d break myself into pieces so that you may reassemble me—build a better me. A me without magic. If only…”

His other hand slithers into yours, squeezing tight. You’re arrested by the strain in his tone when he speaks next, so full of yearning and desperation. Covetous. Shameless.

“If only.”

“R-Rollo, please stop…”

“Yes… Yes, of course,” he babbles, nodding to himself. “I’ve likened you to a concept—to purity alone—but you are more than that. The embodiment of it… An angel. Otherworldly, immune to the poisonous effects of magic… Yes, that is what you are. An angel bereft of flaws.”

He fishes his celestial-patterned handkerchief from his pocket and presses it to your lips next. Your eyes snap open to find him now much closer than before, and you have but a moment to brace yourself before he leans in. The kiss is indirect, the both of you separated by the cloth, but the intention is there. It sticks to you even after he’s lowered the handkerchief. You are too pure and he is too filthy, which is why your lips must never touch.

Contradictory because he’s kissed you before.

Rollo drags your blood-soaked panties down to your knees. You shudder like a frail leaf caught in autumn’s harsh breeze.

“I’ve saved you—freed you!—from those…those villains. So you must allow me to indulge.” He shakes his head, his licentious, lustful stare smoldering to such a scorching degree it brands impure, unhealthy love upon your bare flesh. “I will indulge because I have been nothing but agreeable. This—” his fingers brush your slick folds, testing the waters— “is a wonder no magic could ever hope to reproduce. This is just you. Perfect, pretty, pure you…”

Experimentally, his digits dip shallowly inside. You flinch and inhale a sharp, frantic breath, your stomach somersaulting and knotting itself all at once. Complicated feelings stir within you as you writhe under his invasive touch. Your effort to escape is halfhearted; it’s too painful to move, so instead you attempt to clamp your legs shut. He tuts at you and slips his hand out from your hold to pet along your thigh.

“There goes a certain tale,” Rollo says, breathless as he continues his patient exploration. His eyes rove over your pussy like he intends to imprint it in his memory, and he doesn’t shy away from the crimson rivulet that runs down his palm when he sinks his fingers in further. You grit your teeth, melting against the pillows like an angel stamped in snow, and your free hand strangles a fistful of sheets. “In which a pair lived together in paradise, but it was temptation that ultimately led to their downfall. It is a doomed narrative.”

You’re breathing heavily now, your eyes flicking from the ceiling to the many plants that surround you on all sides, each one in full bloom. It feels as if you’re on a bed-turned-boat in a sea of greenery.

A sea of divine fertility.

With a skillful curl the two fingers delve deeper, pressing up against your gummy walls. Against your better judgment, you whine, loud and bawdy. His touch soothes, but then it stings. It makes you want to peel yourself open and step out of your skin so that you may subject it to a vigorous washing. It makes you despise the scent of flowers. It makes you fear the sound of the bell as it tolls unfailingly every single day. It makes you wish you’d never opened your mouth to respond to his words all those weeks ago.

Tears slip from your lash line. “Stop… Please stop…”

“Perhaps this is that same story made modern. Perhaps you were sculpted specially for me and I for you.” A third finger joins the other two working you open. Paper-pale skin is coated in brilliant vermillion, the very color of ardent desire. “Perhaps we are destined to fall together, born anew in someplace purer…”

The slow, steady drag of his fingers is more tempting than the ripe redness between your thighs, and you force yourself to gaze sidelong at the soup sitting abandoned on his desk. He plucks at each of your tangled, dewy strings, unraveling them with graceful strokes, and you’re pulled along on the blissfully uncomfortable current, treading between someplace grounded in reality and fantasy.

From above, at the bird’s eye view, you have become a garden for Rollo’s twisted whimsy.

You return to yourself when he eases his fingers out, stalling for a silent beat, before he thrusts them back in in one fluid motion. It punches the air from your lungs, has you throwing your head back with a weepy howl. He watches this with fierce scrutiny, curious at a clinical level.

“You’re beautiful,” he admits, spreading his fingers inside you. “My world. My panacea. My angel.”

“No… No, no.” You sob, your chest heaving with every wail. You can smell yourself on the air, the sharp scents of iron and sweat. Your pussy weeps blood, devastated at the hands of a monster, and yet it can’t stop affixing itself to him. A mold meant to suit his design. “Please… Please take it out.”

A shadow of contemplation passes over Rollo’s flushed countenance and then he’s reaching over to dry your tears, dabbing at your face with his handkerchief. “You’re okay. It doesn’t hurt anymore, right?”

You shake your head in protest rather than respond, chewing your bottom lip to shreds. A feeble whine slips through and you arch into him when his thumb presses down into your clit and prods at your hood. It happens all too fast. You tighten and loosen all at once, your mouth dropping open and eyes rolling back. The sheets are soaked through and properly soiled now, but that fact doesn’t lessen the seismic ecstasy that drapes itself over you like a veil. Your vision whites out and you fall, fall, fall through the waning vestiges.

Your heart drops into your stomach at the realization.

It doesn’t hurt anymore.

“You’ve done well.” He slides his fingers out, and the gooey squelching wrings a shudder from you. This time he grants you one of his rare smiles—the authentic, sincere kind—while he presses the pads of his fingers to his upturned lips, dyeing himself in your essence. You blink through encroaching tears, an ocean that obscures your vision and fuzzies his figure.

His fingers dig into the plush pudge of your thighs, thumbs rubbing soothing circles along your adductors. You open yourself again, involuntarily blossoming in this garden of iniquity.

“Good,” he praises again, whisper-soft. “You’re only permitted to be this way with me. Anyone else would simply tarnish your sweetness. They’d take advantage of your ability to cleanse even the foulest of filth. But I…”

Rollo, still clothed and now libidinous in his impatience, fumbles to pull himself free. His throbbing erection presses against your stomach, the final piece to force this puzzle to completion.

“I will always lay myself at your altar.”

You beg him not to, but every objection goes unheard. His hips connect with yours; he’s holding back, if only just barely, pressing onwards slowly, his breath coming in huffs and grunts. To savor it. To know the feeling firsthand and engrave it into his very being, from his fingers to his toes. To immerse himself in the red rain of a shackled angel.

To color a picturesque paradise in cardinal sin.

Just beyond the windows of Eden, swathed in midnight luminescence, a glorious city set aflame burns bright, overtaken by fiery flowers.

[writing-whump]

Hi Sol! I was really interested to see Isaiah's reaction to learning about the car accident and I wondered if he is suppressing some of his emotions about it? Any chance for a little fic seeing him feeling more upset than he's showing Arnie, and maybe getting sick over it? Could he go to Seline for comfort? Thank you as always for your wonderful writing!

Oh, he is definitely suppressing his emotions very much. This is a great idea, thank you, Lis!

Have some stress sick Isaiah with Seline as caretaker.

Stress sick

Isaiah came home to an empty apartment.

After the chaos and excitement on the full streets and then the whole mission of getting Arnie home giving him focus, the silence was deafening.

He braced himself with his back against the table, suddenly strangely out of sorts at what to do.

There was no one to greet. There was no one to rescue.

There was no one to keep appearances for.

He blinked a few times. His chest felt numb as it did when he experienced something upsetting and had to keep functioning, letting the mask of calmness and the ice cover him enough to do it.

It had been like that for years, since his Executioner training with father. He still found it useful.

But the reality of what Arnie told him...of them both in a car accident....of Hector so tired of healing to the point he was sleeping it off for days already...Arnie getting migraines since he was 13...basically since Isaiah left...could it be related, could that been his doing? And why didn't they call him right away when they had a crash? Why wasn't he there?

Could he really just have lost them...in an unnoticed, mundane moment of a car crash? Gone from one moment to the next through something he couldn't prevent, that he didn't know of, wasn't even there?

Unexpected death.

There was a hole in his stomach at the thought, at the reminder.

The way their mother died. The apartment smelled of her life, her nightgown draped on the bed, the teacup she drank from just a few hours ago in the living room. The handbag she forgot on the table. Just...gone.

Isaiah felt his knees wobbling, leaning more into the table to keep himself upright. His stomach clenched together like a fist, like it wanted to shrivel up inside him.

Just as he felt the nausea crawling up the back of his throat, the door opened.

"Isaiah! You home?" Seline whirled inside, shrugging off her shoes and coat in her hurry to get to him. "You won't believe what happened today!"

She found him in the kitchen, a bright smile on her face. It didn't fit the reality in Isaiah's mind at all.

"You know the abstract for the article that I made you read? It got accepted! I was chosen as one of the speakers at the conference!" Her eyes were sparkling with joy and pride, going from stormy blue to sea blue of a sunny morning.

"I'm going to present my research in Czech Republic!" She crashed into him, hugging him around the neck. He bend down to let her, wrapping his arms around her in return.

Seline pressed a kiss against his lips, leaning away. "Can you believe it? I was there last year at the conference and now I'm actually contributing to it."

Her arms went down his back and pushed herself against him, squeezing his stomach in the process. It gurgled at the pressure, tightening.

Isaiah's shoulders hitched as his cheeks blew out with air, but he managed to stiffle it. His stomach cramped and he did his best to not double over, but the flood of emotion and pain were still out there. This caught him off guard.

Seline looked up at him, smile still dazzling and ignorant in her delight, kissing him. Deeply.

A rush of bubbles went up his throat and he couldn't react quickly enough, his lips pried open by hers. The burp rushed right out between their mouths.

He jumped away from her in panic, pressing his hand against his mouth. Too late. "God, excuse me- I'm-" He burped again, his stomach sloshing angrily with the heavy lunch he had before everything went to hell.

Seline watched him in confusion, pressing her hand against her lips. Her cheeks turned pink as she stared at him. Her eyes went wide.

Isaiah was mortified beyond his worst nightmares. He just burped into her mouth as she was kissing him.

"I'm so sorry, Seline, I-" Isaiah turned his back to her, not being able to stand her gaze. He gripped one of the chairs hard for support. He felt woozy from the horror and his stomach was cramping hard, sending out another string of muffled burps.

"It's okay," she said, sounding dazed. "I'm sorry, I didn't- what's wrong? Do you feel sick?"

"I- I just-" He doubled over the chair, squeezing his eyes shut. The nausea was climbing up his throat and his stomach felt bloated, pressing against his button up and pants and suit and he just did the most unthinkable thing and the accident happened and he-

Another loud wet burp snuck its way out of his throat, announcing a pressing need for the bathroom.

He stumbled towards it, feeling drunk. Sweat sprang up on his skin, his clothes gluing themselves to him immediately.

He knelt down in front of the toilet, opening his mouth. His stomach felt so full, pushing up gas. All the food he ate was sloshing and churning angrily in his belly as it clenched.

The next burp echoed through the whole bathroom as it hit the tiles.

Then he felt cold careful hands on his nape. "Baby. You are feeling sick, aren't you. Poor thing."

Isaiah belched loudly into the toilet. "Go away, please. I don't want you-"

"Shhhh. I'm not going anywhere. You can't expect me to leave you alone like this."

For some reason that had his eyes burning. "I'm sorry, I'm so gross, I-"

"You can't help it. It's alright, nothing happened. I should have noticed sooner. I can be so stupid sometimes."

"No, you are not," he spat into the bowl, panting for breath. "I'm really happy for you, that's amaz-" He shut his eyes as a wave of nausea rolled through him, groaning quietly inside his mouth.

Seline tugged at the collar of his suit jacket. "Let's get you out of these clothes."

Isaiah didn't feel like he could lift his head up. His stomach was churning up a storm and he felt like he could throw up any second. So he let her pull his suit off, one arm at a time.

She even left to put it on rack so it wouldn't get wrinkled, which had appreciative warm spreading over him. He should have thought of that too, that was a suit he really liked.

Seline returned quickly, kneeling down at his side and went to work on unbuttoning his shirt. Her next move was to unzip his pants.

Isaiah felt himself reddening at that. His stomach ballooned out immediately and he sighed in relief as the pressure eased off.

Seline kissed his temple, her hand scratching his sweaty back over the open shirt. "What brought this on? Did you eat something bad?"

He swallowed back the flood of saliva, leaning his forehead against the rim of the toilet. That had her folding up a towel, gently lifting his head up so she could put it under his face to cushion it.

"Just-" he burped loudly, wincing at the sound, "just stress. I'm being so lame, I'm sorry-"

"Don't you apologize for having feelings," she said sternly. "You went out with Arnie today, right? Did it not go well?"

"It was- it was fine, we had fun," he spit up some residual drool, tensing under her hand as another cramp hit him. "Arnie...Arnie told me- they were in a car accident. Three-three days ago." It felt even worse saying it out loud.

Her hand rubbed steady circles on his back. He followed the sensation internally, trying to get the words out. "They had- they almost died. Hector had been recovering from healing- and Arnie could have- can you imagine if he was the one-?" Isaiah wrapped his hands around his stomach as it twisted. It felt like being stabbed with a bunch of knives right in the middle.

Seline brushed his sweaty black hair behind his ear.

"And-and I couldn't- I didn't- when would I have found out? Why didn't they call me- what if-" He gagged at the words, once and twice, stomach slamming against his ribs.

Seline pressed her face against his shoulderblades on the left and he felt a bit reassured by the contact, but the words still ushered up a string of burps. Each was a little wetter at the end and his stomach was still twisting from the knives, the nausea unbearably high. He felt like he was drowning as he burped up some more bile.

"Shhhhh. But they are alright. It's over. You don't have to be afraid of what could have happened, because it already didn't."

He wanted to nod, he wanted to accept that, find any comfort in it, but he burped up a mouthful of acid and bile instead, shuddering.

"I could have lost them," he whined, his head buried in the bowl. He couldn't imagine himself being more gross and for once he didn't care. The panic, the sense of loss and fear constricted his chest.

Her hand on his back stilled, changing directions. It wasn't just a rub. Now it was gentle patting against his upper back. "Let it out, baby. You will feel better."

As if that was the permission he needed to hear, he burped, his whole body heaving as it brought up a small amount of liquid. It started the process alright, his stomach clenching and uncleching as he projectile vomited his whole lunch into the bowl.

He heaved and heaved, thick chunky waves of food and liquid. Seline rubbed his back the whole time, her touch something to focus on as he lost control of his body. His back arched with the strength of the heaves.

He burped up a few more liquid mouthfuls before slumping down against the folded towel in exhaustion. He whined quietly as his stomach still cramped. "I don feel good."

Seline lifted herself on her knees to reach the sink, letting the water run. Then she bend down over him, her hands wet with cold water, putting them against his cheek. "Shhh. I know baby, I know. I'm so sorry. You will feel better in a minute."

As if to prove her wrong, he gagged emptily, turning his head back towards the toilet in time to burp up another wave of liquid.

He heaved and heaved, retasting all the dessert and soup all over, reaching all the way to his breakfast.

He felt her palms against his back as she leaned into him, murmuring little nothings in his ear. "You are doing so well. Almost over. Everything is okay."

After what felt like eternity of heaving, spitting and gagging, he finally felt like he could unwrap his hands from his middle, the knives melting into a puddle of sharp bubbling rocks in his gut.

He folded his hands on the toilet, blowing up some more burps to the side, away from her.

Seline kissed the side of his face still, like he wasn't the most disgusting display of man she had ever seen. Then she planted a kiss into his hair at the back fo his head. "All better now. Think we could get back to the room? We should get you out of these, darling."

Isaiah let her push him away from the toilet, feeling spend and empty and thankfully not as nauseous anymore. His stomach still hurt, in the relaxed way after puking when it felt like it was punched and his throat was burning and tasted like burned potatoes. "Ugh."

She wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling him up and he followed the movement. They stumbled out of the bathroom a little unsteadily, but her clear sense of direction helped him navigate.

They were both panting as they finally flopped down on his bed. She stripped him off his open shirt and pants, looking through his neatly organised cupboard. "Do you have anything lose fitting and comfy at all?"

He let himself fall to the side on the bed, grateful for how cold and soft the cushions were. "No," he said with a quiet snort.

Seline shook her head in exasperation. "At least I know what kind of gift you need now." She put the covers over him, then crawled into the bed beside him to press herself against his back.

"How are you feeling?"

Feeling her warmth and scent behind him, he closed his eyes. "Messed up. Tired. Very embarrassed tomorrow."

She kissed the back of his neck at that. "Scratch that off the to-do-list. It's okay. It's just me."

Her hand rested on top of his shoulder before running gently down to his elbow and back up. He sighed, melting under her fingers.

He could almost sleep, before another thought had his stomach dropping painfully. "Arnie is having migraines," he said quietly.

Seline propped herself up on her elbow to get a view of his face. "Since then?"

"Since he was 13. Or 12." He took a shuddering breath. "Probably since I left."

They were silent for a long minute.

"You can't blame yourself for that. It didn't have to be you. He lost his mother, he is human in a very competive wolf pack, he-"

"He had enough going on without me leaving them both on top," he said with a quiet sob. How was he supposed to live with that? That he caused the kid so much pain?

"I thought I was helping. I thought getting rid of father would put them both-" he took another quick breath, stomach gurgling loudly. Another small burp got out. He felt like he could start throwing up all over again.

"Shhhhh," her hand was in his hair again, pressing herself even closer to him from behind. "It wasn't your fault. You did the best you could about an awful situation that had no right answers. And you know why there wasn't any right solution?"

He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, gagging emptily against it. "No?"

"Because it wasn't your fault. It wasn't your responsibility. You were all children, it wasn't the job of either of you to save the other. There was nothing more or better or right that you could have done. All three of you had it hard." She wrapped her hands around his chest. "Impossibly hard."

He sagged back against the bed, curling into himself. He reached for her hands, pushing them against his racing heart, as if she could keep him together. His fingers intertwined with hers.

"Hold me like this?" he whispered.

Her grip on his hands tightened. "Always."

[itsbenedict]

From the beginning | Previously | Coin standings | 5/18 | 6/6

MS. OVEREAGER is happy to help you out with your problems- you need to do what, again? STALL AND REMOVE GEARS? No problemo. She'll get started right away! And by "get started", I mean "dissolve into nothingness because she was a hallucination masking an abstract concept"! You're on your own, buckos.

Okay, so... Adea thinks that this ODD TAIL AVATAR DATA VALIDATOR is after the gears that Walter ransacked from this place to heal himself earlier. If he can get them out, it'll probably stop chasing him. But removing them- even though they're clearly hurting him at this point- will hurt more, like pulling a knife out of a stab wound. He's going to need to stabilize somewhat before you can risk it.

Right here, with a Defrag Point to heal with, is the best place to do it- but he "healed" about 15% STINGY OUTLIER SOUL INTEGRITY earlier, so he should expect removing the gears to do at least that much damage. He'll need to stay there healing for at least enough time to go through two hunger, probably three, to not die on the spot. So it's a question of... how much time does he have to heal before the DATA VALIDATOR arrives and it's time to operate?

Zero. Zero amount of time. It's right here.

Five NOBLE BELT TUTS remain in the DENIAL OF SERVICE gun. Is it worth it to spend them fending this thing off? By the numbers, no. It's more efficient to just buy SOFTWARE PATCHes. But Adea isn't putting up with this thing chasing after her husband one moment more.

Error: architectural entity field 0x07CF referenced without blueprint key. Update loop deferr-

BLAM.

Error 403: resource reclamation process not configured for I/O operations. Interactions with entities other than entity with field 0x07CF rejected. Error 403: resource reclamation process not configured for I/O operations. Interactions with entities other than entity with field 0x07CF rejected. Error 403: resource reclamation process not configured for I/O operations. Interac...

Four left. The undulating thing is frozen in place. Slowly- achingly slowly- the Defrag Point starts knitting Walter back together. As it does, Adea pries clockwork out of his chest, causing him to shudder violently. It's slow, and harrowing, and every gasp of pain from her scrungly little man makes her wince- but she pulls out about a third of it before the thing finishes rattling off rejection messages for the packets.

Error: architectural entity field 0x0--

BLAM.

The two of you, on top of being injured, are practically starving. Adea suggests-

Walter says we absolutely not resorting to cannibalism on purpose! That was an accident! He wasn't in his right mind! No way no way no way!

Adea says fine, and Walter lets out a cut-off scream as she rips out a driveshaft assembly that was pretending to be his lung. She's got about two-thirds of it out, now- and she's got an idea to conserve ammo.

Error: architectural entity field 0x07CF referenced without blueprint key. Update loop deferred until resource is released.

Yeah, you want this stuff, right? Go get it, Adea says- flinging a gear like a frisbee. The DATA VALIDATOR swoops through the air after it, snagging the gear on a tooth with frightening speed. But... not so frightening that she can't delay it a little more with what she's got.

She hurls the lung-driveshaft like a javelin behind the thing, and then starts chucking the rest of the clockwork every which way, scattering it over a wide area. Like a vampire confronted with grains of rice, the DATA VALIDATOR starts scrambling for the pieces of its precious architectural entity field 0x07CF, twisting itself into knots.

While it chases down cogs, sprockets, gears, and springs... Adea hurries back over to Walter, and rips the rest of the machinery from his chest cavity. This one hurts. He's a huge baby about it and screams like that one time she accidentally bought chili oil instead of lu- uh, like it hurts a lot. This would definitely kill him if he weren't being actively defragmented. She tries not to think about that.

You were kind of hoping this thing would immobilize itself from tying itself in knots, but it's able to stretch itself out and slip through gaps in its own Gordian nightmare. It's all you can do to get the rest of it out before it closes in on you again.

Daintily, it pries open a hatch on the sidewalk with one tooth- and then, piece by piece, delicately reassembles the machinery that Walter mistook for spare parts earlier.

Update loop resumes.

With an audible TWANG, and the sound of rushing air, the tension in the DATA VALIDATOR's tail is released. The knot undoes itself, and its head shoots off backwards into the distance as it's recalled to its starting point in the blink of an eye.

It's gone.

...Now what?

The FILIAL TWINS are still here, and you could always go somewhere with a phone and participate in a NAIAD RUMBLE- but there's a few other possible priorities.

There's this moronic cook who doesn't realize he's not welcome. IDIOT CHEF WON'T GO, so you've got to do something to get rid of the jerk.

You could explore the CURVE HOUSE, a weird distorted funhouse-mirror version of a normal building with all its right angles. Seems disorienting!

There's this guy named Pete sitting on the sidewalk nearby who won't stop crying. EMOTIONAL PETER should probably go to actual therapy, but maybe the two of you can help?

There's a FIENDISH ELF ARISING, and it may or may not be your duty as legendary heroes to stop it from becoming a new Demon Lord or somesuch.

Mom's trapped! OH, RELEASE MOM! From her prison that happens to be here for some reason! ...Which one of your moms is it, anyway?

Continued

[askceruleansans]

*Prism isn't to Worried about that, Her anger is giving her magic a boost, Or some kind, a power up one could say, Her anger makes her feel alive, Strong Even.*

*Like the creators themselves wouldn't be able to stop the choices she could make when she's like this.*

*It's an odd kind of high, It's not the first time she's felt like this actually, There's been many times where she's gotten so close to murdering People.. Many people..*

*She whips Distort back with her tail as if he weighed nothing.*

*She notices how distort slammed into the wall so harshly and the debris that surrounded him when that happened.. He'll definitely have a scar at the back of his skull she'll have to take care of when distort comes to his senses and realizes this fight is pointless..*

*But for now she's going to bask in her power, In her anger and frustration she's found she can direct.*

*She feels.. control..*

*Her grin widens, Oh what a lovely day this has become.. Not only has she found two wonderful partners, But now she's beating her ex into the dirt like he's no stronger then a toddler..*

*no distort is quiet strong, Being the kid of a God of negativity and destruction is a sure fire way to be strong, But he seems to forget chaos overrules everything.*

*and she.. She's the goddess of it, Of chaotic magic..*

"You really like to underestimate me don't you..?"

*She asks, her voice has a mocking tone underneath the giddiness of it..*

[Continued from last rp]

*At first Kari was basking in the positivity (as anger and rage filled as it was) that Prism was steeped in.. but when she threw Distort at the wall she knew it was time for them to stop.

*Abstract's wings start to fluff up in alarm.. when Distort hit the wall he became aware of Distorts soul... Distort was on the cusp of death.. if she kept going.

*Distort lays limply in the pile of rubble.. eyes dizzy... thinking was like walking through sludge.

*He groaned and...... Flicked Prism off.. because even hurt he would not give her the satisfaction of winning.

*Kari runs toward the two.

"PRIS!!"

*She yells... trying to distract Prism for a moment... So that she wouldn't keep almost killing Distort. (as much as he may deserve it)

[rainbowsandwhumperflies]

whumptober day two!

No. 2: “I’ll call out your name, but you won’t call back.” Thermometer | Delirium | “They don't care about you.”

ocs are onyx and september! they've barely ever been on tumblr so this might be incoherent but we'll pretend it makes sense. also the lyric is kind of abstract in here but there is a point where a name is said and there's no response so we're counting it

tws: fever, panic, fear of being hurt by a caretaker

taglist: @kaleidoscope-of-thoughts

“Onyx?” A hand brushed against my arm, and I jumped. I would’ve pulled myself as far away as my legs would let me if not for the hand catching onto one of my wrists and holding tight.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean- please, I wasn’t trying to run, I-” Except I kinda had been trying to run, and a good servant would never lie, but a good servant wouldn’t run in the first place, so-

“‘S okay, hun.” A yawn, and then, “Can you try to focus on me for a second here?"

I blinked hard, trying to focus, to be a good servant and do what I had been asked, but my eyes were blurry, and oh, was I crying? I couldn't focus, I couldn't… and shit, what had I been asked to do? There was, there had to have been something I needed to do-

"Onyx, hey, easy. You’re okay. I'm gonna take a deep breath with you, alright?" The voice was clearer than it had been, but it still didn't make sense, why didn’t anything make sense yet?

But someone was saying breathe, and I could do that, I could- couldn’t I do that? Air goes in your lungs (“Good, Onyx.”) and that was good, I was doing good, and then it goes back out. Okay, okay, okay, I could, I could do this. And there was a hand touching- holding on to my wrist, squeezing the veins, and I didn't pull away this time. I was good, I wouldn't pull away, I stayed still, still still still. I would stay still, I would hold so so still-

But that wasn't right either, no, someone had told me to breathe, so I forced my lungs to move. In, and out, and in and out, in and out, inandout inandout, I could do this, all that had even been asked of me was breathe- did I even really have an excuse to be doing this horribly?

"Onyx, love, can you hear me alright?"

I nodded, yes, yes, I could hear, I could do that, please please please give me more chances to be better.

"Good, okay. Try to open your eyes."

And oh, that's why I was all disoriented, I was missing one of my senses, my eyes were squeezed all the way shut. I must have shut them at some point, but no, no, they shouldn't be, so I pried them open to the dim light of- of September. In September's room, in September's bed, with September. Who didn't hurt me. Who had never hurt me.

"There you are," they said softly, almost smiling, covering up panic and concern that wasn't really all that concealed. "Breathe, honey. You're okay, you're safe, you know me."

I nodded, quickly, still too quick, too quick like my fast breathing and fast heartbeat (because I knew that's what September's hand was measuring on my wrist), but they were right. I knew September. September wouldn't- wouldn't ever- wouldn't usually, maybe, they wouldn't usually hurt me.

"Deep breaths, Onyx, focus on breathing. I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? No one's gonna hurt you."

And there it was. I forced my breathing to slow down, because there was the confirmation I needed. I wouldn't be hurt, I wouldn't be punished, not for this. September wouldn't punish me.

“Good job, honey. Just keep breathing, I’m gonna grab the thermometer.”

Just keep breathing. Only that. And also remember not to close my eyes so that I don’t forget where I am again. And also don’t try to run again. And also stay focused and present and maybe try to stop my hands from shaking. And also- also, maybe stop coming up with new things, because September had grabbed the thermometer and had turned back toward me.

“Just gonna grab your temperature again. Hold that under your tongue.” They frowned at the number when the thermometer beeped. “It’s a little over a hundred. That's not too bad. Do you feel okay? Or, hold on, that’s a stupid question. Do you feel okay temperature wise? Are you too hot or cold?”

It took me a moment to process everything they said, and I shrugged eventually. “Just a little warm. I’m okay.”

They pulled a cold glass of water out from who knows where and helped me hold it up to my face. The water was cold but not freezing, and I wasn’t sure exactly why but it felt like relief as it hit my stomach. It did help, I thought, and September put the cup back on the bedside table when it was almost half empty. I almost fell back into the pillow, wondering if September just always had a cold glass of water next to their bed in case of emergencies, and if so, what qualified as an emergency? Was it just for me, or was it always there?

And then I followed that thought to all the times I’d seen September in the late hours of the night and the early hours of the morning. Their sleeping schedule was worse than mine, I thought, but mine was bad enough to know that a cold glass of water was usually the first thing I wanted waking up.

September laughed quietly as they turned back around to see me. “You’ve got a weird expression. What are you thinking about?”

"Did I wake you up?"

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ll just go back to sleep.”

“Are you good at going back to sleep after nightmares?” I was fighting to keep my eyes open, but I was pretty sure I saw September tense. “I’m not very good at that. I always have to get a snack.”

“I’m not great,” they whispered. “But I think I’ll be fine tonight. Get some rest, okay?”

And that, at least, was something I could do.

[inkykeiji]

i wanna kiss touya-nii's cock and tell him it's the prettiest thing i've ever seen (*/ω＼*)

he would actually love that n think it’s so fucking cute, so fucking precious, as long as you’re immediately stuffing your throat full of his pretty cock a mere moment later, that is <3 but he can’t help but wonder: is it still pretty when you’re choking on it, gagging violently as he rams the head further and further down your throat and lodges the column full of rough coughs, caustic things that grate on your flesh as they build and build, dense and suffocating?

is it still pretty when his blunt nails are digging into your temples and ears, long fingers splayed on either side of your head, holding you still as his hips snap viciously? is it still pretty when you’re drowning in your own spit, vicious drool collecting in all the dips and crevices of your mouth, so much so that it’s begun seeping past the corners of your lips to dribble in fat dollops down your chin and along your jaw and onto your chest in thick cords; so much so that it’s smeared across his pubic bone in shimmering strokes that catch in the dim light with each drive forward and every pull back?

is it still pretty when your jaw is aching and stiff from being pried open so wide, and your lungs are sticky and burning and deflated from oxygen deficiency, and your vision is so blurry that he looks like an abstract watercolour painting—ivory spikes and glowing sapphire and inky skin melting into one another—eyes coated with thick tears that keep overflowing, escaping your salt-clumped lashes to pour down your cheeks in steady streams?

of course it is. in fact, as far as he’s concerned, it’s even prettier.

[nanananerd]

J'ai pas eu une semaine super chill, limite bien merdique. Ce soir, j'ai pris ma (nouvelle et merveilleuse) voiture et j'ai roulé une grosse heure pour aller voir les étoiles. C'était magnifique. J'ai fait abstraction de tout. J'avais Vandal qui rester tout câlin entre mes jambes. Ça a effacé tout le négatif. Voilà, un post happy pour une fois !

[spelllingandthemysteryschool]

How did you get into abstract art and what do you love most about it? :-) sorry if the smiley face seems ominous, the question read as "bot" and I was trying to add human flavor.

hi! omg literally do not worry you sound very human :-] i’m a big museum goer and i’ve never disliked abstract art or anything, but i think i really properly got into it when i was around 15 years old and taking an art history class at my school, and i mostly have the artist helen frankenthaler to thank for it! i remember my teacher lecturing about her works the bay & mountains and sea and just staring at them and thinking oh my goodness, this is something special. from there i began to explore color field painting and lyrical abstraction and found that i liked it very much, and then i branched out to learn more about other styles of abstract art and found lots to love there, too, and then i ended up studying art history in university and taking several classes on abstract art. i’ve honestly actually found a lot of artists i love via this website, too.

the other week i was lucky enough that an art museum i visited with my girlfriend had a color field painting exhibit going on, and it was so incredibly exciting for me. we marveled at the textures of some of the more paint drip-heavy pieces, stepped closer to huge canvases to admire the feathered edges of stains bleeding into each other, pointed out our favorite sections of paintings of diaphanous clouds of color, what they made us think about or feel reminded of. this all sounds very cheesy probably, but i think what i love most about abstract art, what i got to experience then, is how each individual person sees a particular piece as something else, something totally unique to them. it gives you so much space to dream! i love figurative art forever & i engage with it more regularly than i do with abstract art, but there is something so unique about the way abstract art challenges conventions, challenges any preconceived notions you might be coming in with, and unabashedly pries open your heart to fill it with unbridled emotion, coaxes you into making connections and observations that you must work to find. um. yeah. thanks for asking! 💝

[malorydaily]

The literature of the medieval aristocracy is suffused with the language of honour. It portrays a culture obsessed with reputation, with individual and collective pride, with avoiding shame and taking forceful, frequently violent, revenge for insults.

[...]

Yvonne Robreau has demonstrated just how complex medieval notions of honour could be through an exhaustive study of honour and shame in the fourteenth-century Lancelot-Grail Cycle. Honour is expressed as something ‘interior’, a matter of an individual’s worth, that must be defended and protected from insults. Yet it is also spoken of as an abstract commodity that can be gained or lost through actions. Furthermore, honour can be a verb: one could ‘do honour’ to another, by surrendering to a superior opponent in combat, by welcoming them with appropriate ceremony or by giving suitable gifts. There are also a number of other words with parallel or similar meanings, such as gloire, nom, renom, los, hautesce, digneté and pris.

James Titterton, 'Por pris et por enor: Ideas of Honour as Reflected in the Medieval Tournament' in The Medieval Tournament as Spectacle: Tourneys, Jousts and Pas d’Armes, 1100–1600

[webcxre]

At last!

At long, long last as the screen fades to black you feel reality begin to seep back in as you leave the digital world behind. You raise your trembling hands to your head and slip off the headset with some effort, leaving tender, red marks as the silicone rims are pried from your face. The straps leave subtle indents across the back of your head, stinging as they are removed from their resting place.

The black nothing of the screen turns to a blinding, artificial white as your eyes adjust to a world you left behind for so long. Your eyes are sore, dry, and stained a startling pink. You try to blink in hopes of wetting your tired eyes. As the room comes into view you realize it's a far cry from the brilliant, vibrant colors of the circus. It's a cold, sterile white.

Shuffling to your elbows, you struggle to maneuver with atrophied muscles and stiff joints. Leaning forward you take in the full scope of the room. It resembled a hospice wing with rows of empty beds along either end, yet it lacked any windows. A mess of wires lined the edges of the walls, connecting each bed to a variety of medical equipment.

You notice, then, that each and every bed has a headset much like yours rested atop it, with no players in sight.

And it hits you, all at once.

You escaped, but at a price. You watched each and every one of the others of the circus lose themselves, abstract and be lost to the cellar below. Back then, you tried your best to forget. After all, you were focused on surviving. To keep yourself alive required forcing yourself to push down the memory of whoever you had lost. And you had lost everyone. And you realize then and there, that perhaps you could have considered them your friends. Now, they were gone forever.

As you try to recall your time spent with them, more memories flood your mind. Small talk beside your desk. Collective groans as one tells the rest about a new batch of errors. That time you made a mistake and someone covered for you. Clocking out together to grab a bite to eat. And that stupid Christmas party, of all things. They were your coworkers. They were your friends. This was where you worked.

Your eyes burn as they begin to glisten, before welling up with tears. You stare blankly into the walls, silent aside from your choking breaths.

At last.

[anewbiegm]

Imperium Maledictum

We’ve just wrapped up our first foray into the new Warhammer 40K RPG from Cubicle 7. 

A little short notice, so I cobbled together and old Dark Heresy adventure I had run in the dim, dark, and distant past. Little more than a dungeon crawl, set in the 40K universe.

I.M. definitely feels different than it’s Black Industries/Fantasy Flight Games ancestors, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. There is still a familiar framework; you can see where it’s come from, but it’s quite a distance from where it started.

Character creation is fast, simple, and easy. Yet it still offers a large enough variety to satisfy most groups. Yes there are some options you would expect to be in a Core Rulebook for 40K that are lacking - I’m looking at you Adeptus Arbites - but it still has plenty of choice.

I like the more pulpy feel of the ruleset, although I will cling onto the Firing Into Melee rules until someone pries them from my cold, dead, hands, the group was quite evenly split on whether to include them. 

I like using abstract Zones rather than explicit distances, something I have been a fan of since my first foray into them in a Modiphius 2d20 game. 

Ammunition is both a quantifiable, and an abstraction which is interesting - you abstract it for automatic gunfire, not having to worry about whether your autogun has 23 or 19 rounds left. But for lower fire rate weapons where each individual shot matters, it is still a finite number.

Damage is lower than it’s Warhammer Fantasy 4th Ed. counterpart, and I’m not 100% sure how I feel about that. WFRP 4th Ed. could have some really swingy, and terrifying damage rolls, but it always felt quite impactful. You do much more consistent damage in I.M. but it felt less thrilling - at least from my GMing perspective.

A reduced Skill list, and automatically gaining certain Talents regardless of whether or not you qualified for them, seems to be a good choice. All of the players felt that it made their characters more competent than they would have been as starting characters in other 40K/WFRP lines.

All-in-all, the group and I are looking forward to playing some of it, when we can squeeze it in.

[vaccerelli]

they turn her on, and the weapon fights. they turn her off, and she sleeps metallic dreams, scored in the fractured data of many pieces and many places, of time long-past, of battles submerged in a digital unconscious, the resonance of long-dead things and long-forgotten words. they turn her on, she pummels another machine to pieces, they collect their fee, and they depart. 

the weapon has known this life for a time now, though they fail to reset her activation clock. she can track the molecular degradation of the integration modules linking her hands to her arms, and so the weapon knows it has been a few years since the brothers fished her out of a battlefield scrapyard and rebuilt her. they started with barely an arm and a head and pulverized torso and scraped together a miracle, and they rejoiced, for they could see profit in many things. first they thought of old professions; pleasure and strength. make her a tool for a blacksmith during the day and a tool for the worker's lusts at night. but when they looked into the weapon's heart -- her absolute core -- the reality of what she was capable of astounded them. she had combat matrixes layered all over military command programming layered over even more obscure battlefield data. she would be capable of leading an army, or building one out of scrap and leading it on her own. the weapon's tactical database would be worth enough chips to retire, if they could have pried it out of her without destroying her. in the end, despite knowledge she was more, so much more, they made her a fighter. android coliseums are big money -- there's a whole circuit between the two biggest cities of the south and all the dust towns between. 

the weapon always wins, unless they request she throw a fight. they turn her on, and she fights. other than her digital dreams she is aware of no other life, no other prize than victory. so many parts of her are not her own. the weapon knows her hands came from a metallurgy drone, her legs came from a performance synth slated for abstract dance, the missing parts of her head came from the brothers previous fighting machine, who they call the savage. whenever she hesitates during a fight, they claim it is the savage speaking, and the weapon does not correct them. how could they understand a heuristic onslaught command interpolation program? she notes the model number of what she's fighting, how it has countercombative programming architecture, how many modal responses it makes, and what combination of moves and stylistic flourishes would be pleasant to the brothers and the viewers of the spectacle. they did not program this into her; she learned after the first few dozen fights that destroying her opponent's power core in a single strike, while productive and intelligent, does not make for a good fight, and that is what the brothers are paid for. combat synths, modified worker techs, broken fleshless cyborg drones, heavy artillery mechs, she has fought and bested them all. the weapon makes the brothers good chips, and so they forgive her eccentricities and complications and mannerisms. 

the weapon does not know the brothers -- Kosaka, the tall one, and Kosolo, the ugly one, though they are both tall and ugly, and they were not born brothers -- have been using her as a gladiator out of last resort, lest they be recruited and sent to the line war. they have also considered selling her to a warlord and vanishing into one of the dark spots of the map. not the North, with their ugly manifestations of slavery and savage war machines, but somewhere quiet, if it still exists. they know every warlord and every city governor lusts to overthrow one of the great remaining white marble buildings and find the amassed technology inside, rather than living off scraps. the warlords do not recognize the writing outside these military installations and entrepots, instead dreaming of some infinite arsenal, which would proclaim them victor over all the dust and scrap of the world. they would not recognize the term caretaker, nor the caretaker authority, nor would they understand the language the men who built such things spoke, nor their motivations. the cta buildings are scattered from north to south, gleaming pristine and white even remote thousands of years after their manufacture, and easily defend themselves from graverobbers and incursions with replicated battle-synths and fusion cannons. the caretakers keep their giant marble structures pristine and safe, and empty, and the artificial intelligences inside them have long since gone decrepit and eccentric, fixating solely on maintaining them in the hopes of a return of the caretakers, and not these filthy nomads in rags and tatters who show up to try to blow down their front doors every few seasons. no one has ever seen the inside of a cta building and lived. an entire legion of hardened cyborgs five centuries previous contested the gates of a cta tower for all of an afternoon and did not even enter the lobby. the warlords of the south cities dream of conquering them, but they know the mystery of what glory they contain motivated their soldiers far more than any true attempt. the brothers, vain and stupid as they are yet possessed of the feral cunning that propels the survival of humanity itself, think perhaps the weapon could survive long enough. they do not know she contains caretaker authentication codes, and that she could walk in to any of the towers like a tourist. the brothers think of selling her to the technologists, who maintain the lost arts of android mechanical repair under a cloud of labyrinthine mystique. the brothers think of selling her to one of the cruel machine circuses that make sideshows and burlesques of unique androids. they always think of selling her, but never do, failing to recognize they are deeply afraid of the weapon, and know in some subconscious fashion that she surpasses them as a wolf surpasses a mongrel dog. she could tear through their mortal flesh in seconds with a swipe of her hand. she obeys them only due to code and confusion. and in their power over her, they terror.

---

an absurd city ruins the face of the shaded mountainside. it climbs into it like rot, dangling with chains and scorched metal. Imir Blackstone, and their curious banner, a jagged black rock over blue and white rivers. the upside down and partially shattered castle etched into it acts as a mighty keep, bristling with cannons and squat antisynthetic turrets. scratched and molded down the side of it are businesses, residences, brothels, chip manufacturers, remodelers, assessors, and at the very base sits the makeshift coliseum, a broken bowl with angry teeth. everyone there fights. escaped slaves from the north. battle constructs. perfect androids with inhuman beauty. scavengers and hunters. men and women who killed ferocious desert beasts beyond the brutality of any machine. all clashed. all destroyed. the sand was muddy with blood and fluids. at night the gutter came alive and devoured all the parts left strewn from lip to lip of the arena. shantytowns surround where the rock digs into the desert. a polyglot city of commerce. another ruined citadel of the new mankind. long ago Imir Blackstone was something else. but so was the desert, so were many of the androids and machines. commandos patrolled upper levels. the sheriff AI in charge of the security was a former sector magistrate, and it did what it could. it believed in prosperity and protection because those were the things it had been the mandate instilled in it down to the very substrate programming. sheriff and warlord worked in perfect harmony, for the warlord understood that in appeasing the AI, he could do whatever he wished. Imir Blackstone was a power in their corner of the world, one of the larger city-states, and much of that corrosive prestige was the coliseum. all clashed. all contested. all hungered for glory or gains. it attracted from across the devastated world. even those in the shantytowns counted themselves lucky to not be stuck in some blasted backwater, surviving on endlessly filtered water and antirad medications. better to prosper than to falter. better to truly live than effortlessly die.

on the level above the physical plane, in the dense augmented code layered over every corner of every surface, huge channels of disruptive tidal malware surged out of Imir, designed hundreds of generations ago to protect from incursions by decrepit intelligences, broken AIs gone senile and sadistic. to every android or sentient machine walking past and a few unlikely souls with implants it looked as if Imir was bleeding bellows of shrieking fire. the sheriff AI was blind to it by way of manufacture and integration. it was both a great bastion and an impenetrable barrier to outside communications. no comms, no chatter. radios more advanced than shortwave howled rough static until their speakers vibrated so hard they broke. the weapon could see it, but found it unimportant, for she could disseminate self-protecting broad-spectrum shieldware reflexively. she waltzed through waves of insignificant viruses to take to the coliseum. she did not contest. she did not clash. she was built for victory. only victory mattered.

the weapon enters the ring against three other machines. one has a rotten leather helmet on and is shaped like a man. one has four legs and a short sword. the last is a two legged defensive mech, which she slaps to the side with a casual backhand at the perfect angle to have one leg shear off when it lands. it buzzes in contemptuous mechanical profanity as she grabs the sword out of the other gladiator's hand with her teeth and bites through it even as three feet connect with her stomach. she takes the ruined blade and cuts two feet off as she rolls back to her feet and then buries it in the uppermost power valve of the mutilated thing and then it is just her and the one in the leather helmet. he drops it off himself and she sees his face and a wave of recognition distorts her for a second -- the serial tattoos across his neck begin with the same seven-digit code as the faded ones from what was left of her neck. he is family. he came from the same factory as her, within the same time period. she sends a tight query to him and as she receieves the confirmation her hand reaches his neck and his head splits from his body in an evacutation of glorious oily fluids and she grabs his head and brandishes it as a trophy. only then does the weapon realize than merely a minute has passed and the crowd is confused and howling. she retreats back to the brothers and when they seek to take the head from her she snarls at them and they shrink back and she realizes many new things about the weakness of pitiful men and easily torn flesh. she takes the head down into the correctional cells beneath the coliseum and begins to question it, quickly.

[murily-the-dreamer]

[lexicog]

Fuck it im posting wip. i wanna make this into pride stickers with alt colors for different flags.. but i also wanted to make a version for people who want something stealth so i was thinking maybe a sprig/bundle of lavender in the hand or behind the body (with a color palette to compliment the purple and green) but i'd love suggestions for other ways i could nod to it. unfortunately i don't think i can sell it this year or at least not within the month... but maybe by next year i can have some more designs to go with it

oh also i want advice 👉 when people make pride merch of monsters/characters/abstract designs, do you prefer when each flag gets a unique design, or when there are flag variants of each design. i figure the latter is better so people can get the design they like most with their flag but the unique characters ascribed to identities is pretty fun in concept. but also i'm not target audience cause i've never been able to buy pride stuff so answir below 👇 if you want

[mysteriis-moon666]

NOSTROMO – Bucéphale

Venez manger les agapes soniques à la table des dieux :

N O S T R O M O

Gargantuesque ! Ce disque est UN sommet pantagruélique.

Le clan helvète revient des limbes de 20 ans d’attente discographique, « Bucéphale » est un disque sombre et tourmenté, plus brillant qu'un ange et capable de créer le plus beau des ciels nocturnes. Il est rempli de la lueur d'un million d'étoiles noires. Ce disque déchiquètera votre âme et en dispersera les morceaux dans tous vos pires cauchemars, il retirera vos parties les plus vibrantes pour les couvrir de votre propre sang, épais et tachant éternellement.

Ce n’est plus de personnalité, l’on ne parle plus de présence, mais d’une véritable créature. S’il y a lieu de représentation et de symbolique avec Nostromo, le riffing algébrique est pris dans la tenaille d’une abstraction qui tient lieu de vision. Cette noirceur arachnéenne tisse dans l’hypnose de froides dissonances dans plusieurs styles musicaux. Metalcore, sludge, brutal hardcore, grindcore, deathcore, indus, le groupe impose sa discipline de fer, sa complexité luxuriante, sa fascination sonique, son magnétisme écrasant, son acier dévastateur.

C’est le premier album pour le label suisse Hummus Records, et il est à noter sur le titre « Asato Ma » la participation de leur compatriote de Monkey 3.

Dans cette vaste plaine chaotique d’une nuit de pure intensité, les tensions très technique propulsent des atmosphères sombres, des mélodies frissonnantes, un groove percutant, une frappe chirurgicale, une contraction irascible, des breakdowns volcaniques, mais aussi des climats contemplatifs.

« Je veux être à l'intérieur de tout ce que tu as de plus sombre. » Frida Kahlo